The Last and Alone Secret
by cmdrtekk
Summary: G1-ish AU: Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his team mates, its a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now a few slips have Jazz tracking it down.
1. Chapter 1

_**Last and Alone – Secret Part 1**_  
**Title:** The Secret Slips  
**Rating:** K+  
**Characters:** Perceptor, Jazz  
**Warnings:** None  
**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's are to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a painful secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. An unexpected continuation of a prompt I took on. It only pretends to have a plot.

* * *

After writing for the initial prompt, I sat down and figured it out, Perceptor doesn't even make my top 20 list of favorite Transformers(Is that a bad thing to admit?). And that is still lumping the entire Constructicon team and the all the Dinobots together as one entry each. (Is that a bad thing to admit?) But apparently, after writing him, he grows on you.

* * *

While on Cybertron or pre-earth, the units of time and distance are measured in Cybertronian units, as detailed below... it's a mix of IDW, DW and BW

Astrosecond : 0.498 Earth seconds  
Nano-klik : 1 Earth second  
Klik : 1.2 Earth minutes  
Breem : 8.3 Earth minutes  
Joor : About 6.5 Earth hours  
Cycle: About 93 hours  
Orn : About 13 Earth days  
Deca-cycle : Approx. 3 weeks  
Stellar-cycle : 7.5 months  
Meta-cycle : 13 months  
Vorn : About 83 Earth years

**Timeline for this**: probably a few Earth years after **The Last and Alone**, which actually works out nicely as a prelude/introduction for this storyline. It should, seeing as how this stems from that.

* * *

**  
****Part 1**

Perceptor was aiding Ratchet with the off lined Hound when he saw the medic twitch. At the same time he felt the eerie tingle that indicated Dirge was in the area. Perceptor stood and turned in time to see Dirge land a few paces off, intent clear in his posture.

"You don't want to do this today Dirge." warned Perceptor as he accessed programming he had kept dormant since waking up on earth and prepared to battle.

"Yes I do, only the medic can't be touched, there's no rule against his staff."

Perceptor saw Jazz coming in the distance, too far away yet to assist, which was just fine with Perceptor. It had been several vorns since he had cut loose, so to speak, in battle. Having played the part of brilliant scientist well. And now after a mere fraction of a vorn on Earth, he found he was ready for some action. Perceptor felt Dirge increase his sub sonic vibrations and smirked at Dirge's confusion in his lack of response. "Your song has no effect on me Dirge." Not quite the truth, but Dirge certainly didn't need to know that. "Nothing's worse than what I live with everyday." And before Dirge had time to puzzle over the odd comment, Perceptor closed in, allowing the rush of hand to hand combat to fill him once again.

Several near misses, kicks, jabs and punches later and Dirge was desperately trying to disengage from the – in his opinion – battle crazed scientist. Who knew the science bot was so good at hand to hand combat anyway? Perceptor however was not interested in letting Dirge escape so quickly. Dirge gained the advantage when in desperation he lined up Ratchet in his sites, standing orders regarding the medic be consigned to the Pit. It had the desired effect. Perceptor moved to cover Ratchet and Hound, taking the brunt of the concussion bomb.

+-+-+-

"Perceptor?"

Perceptor tried to respond thru the fog in his CPU as connections came up again from the re-boot.

"Perceptor, you still with us?"

He on lined his optics to a blue visor, black helmed bot and responded with the first name that came from his memory. "Slider."

"Who's Slider?" was the confused response.

Without even thinking Perceptor responded, "One of my gestalt mates." Then stared in shocked horror at Jazz, hoping the saboteur had not heard or understood that response. Judging from Jazz's expression of surprise, obvious even with the visor, he'd heard it.

Perceptor's diagnostics pinged announcing – by some amazing luck - only superficial dents and dings along with some very minor energon leaks. His armor had held. "Ratchet and Hound?" He queried, deciding it best to move the conversation along. The battlefield was not the time to deal with his slip of the vocalizer.

And thankfully Jazz responded as hoped, though his tone was …off. "Back behind the battle lines, we set up a med area. Ratchet scanned you before he left. Said you'd re-boot in a minute or so, that's why your still here. I'm your escort."

"Thank you Jazz, but I have already located the medical area, and can make it safely without your assistance."

"Yeah about that 'Lambo twins' thing you just pulled there on Dirge…" Perceptor did not wait to hear though. The sooner away from Jazz the better. Perceptor climbed to his feet and bolted for the section of battlefield where the medical team was set up. He could not believe he had just let a thousands of vorns old secret slip so simply. If he was lucky, Jazz would perhaps drop that answer as scrambled chips from the emergency re-boot. After all, stranger comments had come from bots coming out of a battlefield re-boot than one thinking he belonged to a gestalt. Though, knowing Jazz, Perceptor would not be so lucky.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Part 2**  
**Rating:** K+  
**Characters:** Perceptor, Jazz  
**Warnings:** None  
**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's are to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a painful secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. An unexpected continuation of a prompt I took on. It only pretends to have a plot.

* * *

**Part 2**

It was a couple of days after the battle that Jazz made his way to the Med Bay. The odd comment from Perceptor about gestalt mates had hung in his processor. He would have dismissed it as a re-boot quirk, if not for the look on Perceptor's face. The look had been honestly horrified. It was a look Jazz could have pictured on say Prowl's face if Prowl had just given over to the cons every password, security protocol, battle procedure and tactical weakness for each member of the Autobots. Well that would have been the look on Prowls face just before his processor crashed anyway.

So, in the time since the battle, Jazz had done everything he could, short of talking with Perceptor directly; since the scientist was obviously avoiding him. And short of hacking Ratchet's medical files on Perceptor to see what might have been meant by the comment. He had discovered vorns ago, that no matter how good he was at hacking – and face it, he was confident he was one of the best - Ratchet somehow, someway, always, and he really did mean always, knew when he had snooped. It was indeed a mystery, since Ratchet was no hacker. Pit, Ironhide was better with computers than Ratchet. For Jazz, all in all, over the vorns, it had proven to be far safer for his armor and general health to just flat out explain to Ratchet what he wanted and why. Hopefully his reason (story) would be a good enough one.

He strolled through the doors of the Med Bay like he owned the place. Part of that was just his normal flair, but the rest was an attempt to throw Ratchet off step a bit since this was the medic's home field. In that second aspect he failed miserably, again.

"It's already up on the terminal in my office." was Ratchet's greeting.

+-+-+-

Jazz huffed, cycling air through his vents as he shut down Ratchets computer terminal. Absolutely nothing in the medical file indicated that Perceptor was or had ever been part of a gestalt. At least the word gestalt had never been mentioned within the file. So, maybe it had been a re-boot quirk. Still, he kept coming back to the expression on Perceptor's face, a mere 

fraction after he had answered Jazz's question. That had not been any quirk. So what did it mean anyway? If Perceptor had once been part of a gestalt team, did that really change anything?

Well yes it did Jazz realized. If Perceptor had once been part of a gestalt, then he was still part of a gestalt. While he did not fully understand the gestalt bond or the technology involved, he did know that just like twins, gestalt members lived and died together. Kill one and that killed the rest. It was considered the greatest weakness of the gestalt technology. Followed immediately by damage one member hard and serious enough and you had a good chance of distracting the rest of the team to the point of uselessness. The less experienced the team and the more team members you damaged seriously, the harder for the remaining ones to function within normal parameters and efficiency levels.

So if Perceptor was part of a gestalt, where was the rest of his team? Jazz wasn't a tactician like Prowl, but he could certainly see the advantage of another Autobot gestalt to counter the Decepticon ones. _Or maybe that was it, maybe the rest of the Percy's team were Decepticons? _And that tossed up a whole other set of headaches within his processor. Security, traitors, double agents and more problems started clamoring to be heard in the Special Operation Officers head.

That a gestalt member would turn against his teammates was hard to believe. He had read everything the science team had reported on gestalts when the Autobots had acquired the Aerialbots. As part of the Command Staff he had been present for the interviews of the individual jets after returning to earth and things had settled down. It could be that the Aerialbot team was just so very young, but from everything he had read, been told, and seen in the interviews, it should be impossible for a gestalt member to separate from his team. Right or wrong, an individual always sided with their team. There had been enough pushing and shoving between the Aerialbots and Protectobots to prove that. Though, curiously, it had not prevented Silverbolt and Hot Shot from taking a few romps together in each others berths.

Jazz found his CPU brought back to the question of 'If Percy were part of a gestalt, where was the rest of his team?' _And why was he so hung up on Percy being part of a gestalt?_ The more he thought on it, the more difficult the concept became to wrap his processor around. And yet, his intuition continued to tell him that there was more to that battlefield answer than a re-boot quirk. This puzzle was not going to be solved without talking to Perceptor. Yes, it was time to find the microscope.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Part 3**  
**Rating:** K+  
**Characters:** Jazz, Ratchet  
**Warnings:** None  
**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down. An unexpected expansion/continuation of a prompt I took on. It only pretends to have a plot.

* * *

**Part 3**

Ratchet was waiting as soon as Jazz excited the CMO's office. "Well, did you find, as the humans say; the earth shattering clue that solves the mystery?"

"And what mystery is that?

"I'm not sure what mystery your processor has cooked up, but I doubt you failed to notice Perceptor's odd behavior this past month or more specifically his behavior during the battle two days ago? Knowing you as I do, something about Perceptor has perked your processors interest."

Jazz smiled. "Not much gets past you Ratchet. Though I'd be interested in the 'odd behavior' you mentioned."

"You mean to say you actually didn't notice it?" Ratchet feigned shock.

"Hey, I'm a Saboteur. Mirage or Hound are your mechs if you want observations. And it's not like I spend a lot of social time with the recluse."

"Right."

"Ratchet?" Jazz cocked an optic ridge, even though Ratchet couldn't see it

"Hmmm. Not sure if it classifies as odd really. Just unusual. Perceptor's been even more quite and withdrawn than normal. Though he has gone thru such periods before, it's not typical for it to last this long. As I said, this time it's been going on about a month; which would be around two orns. Longest Jack and I can remember him avoiding us is one orn. He may not talk much unless it's science related, but he does enjoy being in the presence of others. It's almost like he's making sure he's not the only one left on the base. Neither Jack or I can figure what we've done to earn his avoidance, so something else must be bugging him."

"Do you remember exactly when this started?" Jazz asked interested.

"It was right about the time of that battle in the Texas oil fields. The one where we almost lost Groove and Streetwise. I remember because First Aid was pretty much a useless wreck with two of his team mates so badly damaged. I called Perceptor to fill in for him. Then I came real close to kicking Perceptor out because he seemed almost as distracted, but he settled down after a couple threats." Ratchet shrugged.

"Ratchet, anything I should know about Perceptor that's not in his personnel file or his medical records that you or Wheeljack happen to know about?"

"Doubt it. Even in casual conversation, he rarely offers up personal revelations. Mostly he listens. Or if he is talking then its medical and scientific topics as you well know." Ratchet paused here, his optics dimming in thought. "What are you thinking here Jazz? What happened during that battle that I missed?"

"You didn't find it strange…Percy making the first strike in the fight with Dirge? I mean I know I was a long ways off, but it was pretty obvious he started the fight."

"Jazz, it's pretty obvious Dirge started the fight by landing with his weapons armed." Ratchet offered dryly.

"Yeah," Jazz waved the response away, "but Percy initiated the physical fight. And he seemed to be…"Jazz paused to think carefully over how to phrase his observation, "…holding his own quite nicely."

"Yes he was, till Dirge took aim at me and Hound."

"And you don't see anything unusual in Perceptor doing this?"

Ratchet paused confused, "Jazz, without Perceptor, Hound and I would have been a lot closer to scrap. You were the nearest to our position, and you still didn't arrive till after Dirge broke free."

"That's exactly what I mean!" Jazz exclaimed throwing his hands and arms wide before pointing a finger at Ratchet. "Dirge had to break free of the fight. Percy wasn't letting him go. And how was he able to function so well with Dirge playing those blasted subsonic vibrations?"

"You know we're all affected at different levels by Dirge's tune, granted it's very negative for the majority. But you yourself can actually function pretty well with them at times, playing your own tunes internally to counter. It is possible that Perceptor has devised a method of countering Dirge as well. And just because he sees little enough of battle here on Earth, he saw it regularly on Cybertron. Slag, we all saw it regularly. So again, what's got you all worked up about Perceptor during that battle?"

Jazz huffed with a cycling of his vents holding silent otherwise. Ratchet glared. "I'm waiting. Just because I let you have access to my files before hearing your story, does not mean you're off the hook for groveling for access."

"Fine! But I'm not even sure what's got me worked up about this! It's just…when he on-lined from the emergency re-boot, he called me another bots designation. When I questioned who that was, he said it was his one of his gestalt mates."

"A quirk from being off lined in the middle of battle and the emergency re-boot protocols activating. It happens." was Ratchet's immediate response.

"No. I thought so at first when I started looking at this, but right after he answered he gave me a look that… the best way to describe it would be that he was horrified. Like he had just killed his best friend by friendly fire, or… I don't know. But the look was real."

"Ok, so..," Ratchet paused to collect his own thoughts. If he's a member of a gestalt, as you're suggesting, and I think, as the humans say, you're out in left field here, then he's managed to hide it all the vorns that we've known him. Do you realize that he would somehow have to be able to fool all our medical machines? And that's not just routine maintenance. That includes when he's been off line and, or, severely wounded. I don't see how that's possible. Maybe once or twice, but not as many vorns as we're suggesting. If he was a gestalt, then any scan of him, from basic surface to full should reveal that. The gestalts aren't just bonded. There spark bonded. They each carry a piece of each members spark. If you were to crack any of their casings, you'd see five different streams of energy all laced together in a big glowing knot. In fact, team members sparks while identical under scan do offer far different readings than an individual mechs. They're a bit more similar to a bonded pair or a bonded trine. And even closer to the spark readings a pair of spark split twins would have, such as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. However, Perceptor's spark scans like a normal individuals."

"You've never visually looked at it though?"

"I can't think of very many reasons to crack open a sealed spark casing. It's highly risky. During repairs, as long as the casing is intact, we leave it be. Now, we know that gestalts are spark bonded from stolen records on the Constructicons as well as exams of our own two teams. The Constructicons were surgically spark bonded during the gestalt process. The Aerialbots and Stunticons were created by Vector Sigma already spark bonded. Same for the Protectobots. Records also showed that Starscream surgically bonded the Combaticons. Now being created spark bonded, is similar to, but not the same as spark split twins. Twins share a single spark. Spark bonded gestalt teams have their own individual sparks, but then they also have a piece of each team members individuals sparks."

"My instinct keeps saying I've stumbled onto something."

"Fine, then there's the question of where's the rest of his team? Gestalts live and die together. And in case you haven't noticed, they tend to have, to use another human phrase, 'hissy fits' when you attempt to separate them for any length of time. I cannot picture a gestalt member tolerating being separated from his teammates for as long a time period as we are considering. Teams have to periodically form the Gestalt, to maintain their anchor to the world. The Gestalt personality anchors the individuals, who in turn anchor each other and the Gestalt itself. The time span were talking, this mystery team of yours should all be insane by now. And that's saying they exist at all. And Perceptor has never shown any indication that he's insane. Which brings me back to the point of live together, die together."

Jazz didn't respond right away as he though further on Ratchets words. The CMO was turning out to be a decent sounding board. "The hard facts say one thing Ratchet, but …Maybe a new kind of gestalt? One not so dependent on the bond?"

"Your still reaching here Jazz."

"Am I? Everything that I am is screamin' that I'm not."

"When would Perceptor have become a member of a gestalt team? He has a continuous, traceable record since joining the Autobots."

"Ok, so before us. There are no records on him prior to his being found in that collapsed building. And you have to admit, the circumstances surrounding his condition are mysterious. What was so important about him to keep him in life support stasis? How was that even possible? Keeping a bot on support for as long as he claimed requires a steady energy source."

"I can answer the how for you. Wheeljack was most fascinated with the machine and got a quick look at it before the area finished collapsing. He was most disappointed that he did not get longer with it actually. But he did say the machine was a marvel of engineering work. It was tapped into an old power line deep within Cybertron. The line itself was so small and deep, it was virtually undetectable. Of course, at that time, neither side was exactly desperate for energy, just continuously short so we had not yet exploited those types of lines like we did later on. In fact, it was still somewhat early enough in the war that we occasionally came across the odd group of neutrals trying to survive off such deep tap lines. We initially assumed we'd found the base of another one of those groups when we found Perceptor."

The conversation had proven useful in some ways, but the end result mirrored his earlier thought. He needed to talk to Perceptor. Ratchet was going to have a field day with this at Jazz's expense if it did indeed turn out to be a quirk. Come to think of it, so would Prowl. But Jazz was convinced he was on to something. He just wasn't sure exactly why or what "So, as helpful as this conversation has been, have I paid my dues for the use of your files, useless though they were?" Jazz asked.

Ratchet arched and optic "Yes I suppose, though I suggest you talk to Perceptor. As interesting as your speculations are, you're probably working your processor into knots over a quirk. I certainly hope you haven't mentioned this to Prowl."

"I know better than that. Can't have Prowler crashing over a quirk and I plan to talk to Perceptor. I just can't find him. It's like he's disappeared. I think I'm going to enlist Red Alert and his security room to the cause."

"Don't bother. Jack and I have experience with this. If Perceptor has really disappeared on you, nothing Red Alert can do will locate him. It frustrates Red Alert to no end, causes his paranoia to kick in and eventually causes him to crash after stewing over the situation for a few days. And I don't want to deal with that. Understood?" Ratchet waved the tool he'd been holding in his hand at Jazz.

Jazz was interested though. He'd never heard this. "How's he able to avoid all of Red's cameras and sensors? I thought me, my team, Prime, Prowl, Red Alert and Sideswipe were the only ones who could drop totally off the grid?"

"Hmpf. Ask him when you find him."

"Yeah I will. That and a lot more I think."

"Jazz." Ratchet called just as Jazz reached the doors.

Jazz turned, "yeah."

Ratchet didn't speak, but Jazz could see several thoughts of various sorts racing across his face. A few more moments of this and Jazz spoke up. "Ratchet?"

Ratchet cycled his air system in a huge sigh and looked at Jazz directly, speaking slow, almost reluctantly. "The… majority of the information we have on gestalts… and by majority I mean probably around 70 percent of it, comes from Perceptor…. Wheeljack and I have always assumed he had at some point made a study of them after Devastator's appearance."

Jazz nodded, "Thanks Ratch, I'll catch ya later." And with that Jazz headed out.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Last and Alone – Secret**  
**Part:** 4  
**Rating: **PG  
**Characters:** Perceptor, The Monolith Team  
**Warnings:** None  
**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down. An unexpected continuation of a prompt I took on. **It only pretends to have a plot.**

* * *

**Part 4**

"Basically it's an electrostatic discharge rifle upgraded for 250 thousand volts plus a few other special modifications to the charge as well." Foist had a hand wrapped around the barrel of a dull black in color heavy rifle that he held out towards Cavalier. "Due to all the extra's, it's unfortunately only good for two shots and at this point, I'm not sure the second shot won't take out whoever fires it, but if you hit the spark merge point, 'pop' the gestalt breaks into its component members who should then also be disoriented enough to prevent an immediate remerge."

Cavalier took the rifle from Foist as he asked "At 250 thousand that's double the standard for this type of weapon. And special modified as well? What are the modifications?"

Foist's optics brightened. "Oh, well, first …"

Cavalier winced and quickly looked from the rifle to Foist and interrupted the black and red engineer before he could really get started. He knew better than to give Foist permission to explain something, especially when a merge later on would give the same explanation and be less painful to ones patience as well as easier on ones understanding. Perceptor smiled at that thought from Cavalier as it slid thru his processor.

Cavalier looked around at the rest of the team feeling them out through the bonds. Then back at Foist as he handed the rifle back. "And why would you make a weapon that neutralizes our biggest advantage, pun intended there." And Perceptor smiled again, this time at the question. They might be an exploration and defense team, but Cavalier always thought of strategy and tactical advantage. This rifle had certainly been a step in the opposite direction, not something he would like. "And why for Primus sake," Cavalier continued "if you're going to invent a weapon is it only good for two shots? And since when do you invent weapons anyway?!"

Those had been good questions Perceptor thought. Foist was their engineer and by less than democratic vote, their weapons supervisor. And while he had not known much about weapons before Monolith, he was no glitch about them now.

Foist shrunk back a step having felt Cavaliers frustration through the bonds; then both defensive and pleading tones in his voice answered his team leader, "It's not for use against us and Monolith, nor Totality's team either. It's just in case this new gestalt they're getting ready to bring online causes problems. And it's only good for two shots because of the components being used in the discharge. I can only get so many power packs on it and still keep it mobile. And If I want to keep it mobile, I'm limited on insulation options to protect the shooter. And you're lucky it can shoot twice as it is. I had to work really hard to get two shots out of it. But I figure even the best sniper misses sometimes, and while Slider and Cep are good shots, they're not that good."

Again Perceptor felt Cavalier's unspoken thoughts. Perceptor and Slider were indeed the best shots on the team. Far enough above average in accuracy that they won as often as they lost in contests against Cybertron Security Force members; still they weren't sharpshooter or sniper quality. The rest of the team were merely average. Just barely in Foist's case. It had always been amusing to Perceptor that the weapons mech of the team had turned out to be the worst shot. Though their weapons were always target accurate and in immaculate working condition.

Tonic took up the conversation then, "The Lab Tech Twistline is concerned about these new guys. He's not said much, only that they're not like us first two teams. He's concerned about what the Gestalt will be like once they finally merge."

"And I suppose you helped with this Tonic? And probably you as well Slider? After all, you must have accessed the specs on this guy?" Cavalier was fragged a bit at the team not bringing up their concerns prior to introducing the weapon and Perceptor felt it. It had remained a secret since the team had not merged recently. Which was also the reason it had come out now. The team needed to merge soon; they had been pushing their limit on time without a merge. And something this controversial was better to have in the open prior to a merge rather than upset Monolith with a potential surprise conflict.

Perceptor directed his attention back to the conversation as Tonic nodded his affirmative to his team leader. But Slider, being Slider, responded verbally; huge smile in place. "Of course I slaggin' accessed the files. They have yet to figure a way to keep me out."

At this point Perceptor interrupted. "Cav, it makes since. Think, we weren't summoned back when Totality's team finally merged and he came on-line for the first time, but both teams are here for this group? From a scout's perspective… I'd say Twistline is not the only guy worried here. It would have taken someone a lot higher up the blame chain than Twistline to force Command to recall both teams."

"Gazer, you have an opinion on this?" Questioned Cavalier as he looked at the only team member who had not yet given a verbal opinion. "I think Perceptor's observation is most likely correct." As always the quiet mech's verbal response was simple seeing no reason to expand on an already expanded topic.

The tension from the rest of the team eased as they felt Cavalier capitulate through the bond. Cavalier felt it as well. He was the only one of the six with a military background, having been recruited – and he used the term recruited lightly- from the Martial Academy. After everything, he still had faith in a command structure, even though the group they worked for was somewhat questionable at times. The Cybertron Colonial Command had been somewhat controversial at its creation vorns ago, and had almost moved 'underground' so to speak in their operations. The better to not upset the good citizens and government officials who disagreed with the need to explore and expand beyond Cybertron and its moons.

Though fully sanctioned by the government the CCC was a don't ask, don't tell group. The gestalt projects were completely top secret. A far as the public was concerned the Monolith and Totality teams were merely exploration teams Being the way it was, not all of the colonists chosen for experimental colonies were exactly volunteers either. Some had just up and disappeared from their lives one day. Hmmm. That sounded familiar. Perceptor himself nodded at the thoughts regarding the CCC.

Still, with the rest of the team's processors agreeable already, Cavalier would go along with them. Right or wrong, there was no way he would split from his team. He sometimes thought this to be an unfortunate side effect of the gestalt, the inability to separate. Though in fairness, the Monolith team had turned out to be extremely similar minded in their desires for Cybertron and it was rare for the team to be at odds for long.

"And that's another thing Cav. All of us had met Totality's members before they merged for the first time. Has anyone met these new guys?" I chatted up Spinster last cycle, and he said none of his team had met them, unless Rockshot is keeping the information to himself. But I doubt that, since you yourself haven't met them. And the excuse from command that both teams have been out in the field is just a useful excuse, not legitimate.

Cavalier directed his attention back to Foist again. There was a lot to consider and he disliked that this was being sprung on him in this manner. "Just how long have you been working on this new toy of yours? We've back less than two orns and Totality not even one yet. And I don't recall any of these thoughts the last time we merged."

"I've told you before, it pays to be friends with the labbies. You should try it. Twistline is very friendly, and he actually has some morals."

"That's because he's young. Younger than all of us when this whole thing started." Cavalier said unsurprisingly disregarding Foist's advice. No matter that he would never give up the gestalt, even if there was a way for him to do so; he still held the lab scientists and technicians responsible for the potential life he had lost. That Twistline had not been part of the original process made no difference to him.

Perceptor's thoughts were more ambiguitious. He did not like the technicians and scientists responsible for his unexpected path in life, nor did he dislike them. He was friendly with them, but not friends. Tonic and Gazer held the same view. Slider had made it his hobby to make the Lab Techs and command regret ever thinking his computer skills were anything they wanted on the team. That they had enhanced his very impressive computer skills with further training in espionage and infiltration only added to their frustrations when the Monolith team was in base.

Perceptor focused again as Foist continued "Yes, well, he's young, he's friendly, he cares, has morals and I stay in touch with him." Foist admitted well aware of Cavaliers stance on the labbies. "And sometimes it pays off. He's been dropping hints for nearly a meta-cycle that he does not like the new team. That the new team is different from us or Totality's team. And Slider's already confirmed it from his hack." Foist nodded at Slider who offered over a datapad.

"Cav, just look at these guys skill set; you'll see this is not an exploration and defense team with some offensive capabilities thrown in for good measure. No offense to you, but these guys all came from the Cybertron Security Force and the Martial Academy before that. And they did not have the best of records in either place."

Cavalier sighed, looking at the datapad he could see the skill set this new team had was…aggressive, no science mechs among them. His teammates were in agreement, and there was no point in pursuing the why's to deeply at this point when a merge would clear everything. "Alright, were off topic here anyway for the moment. Foist, back to your toy. You created a weapon, to be used against gestalts, there being so many of us" and Cavaliers tone dripped with sarcasm, "on the off chance that the new one is going to go rogue?" followed by skeptism. "You did this without any authorization or previous discussion what so ever?" and finally miffed authority.

"Yeah."

Perceptor felt how that last point continued to grate Cavalier as he cycled the air in his systems in a sigh. Then he pushed it aside, "Fine. So it can neutralize the links and force a gestalt to break into its components?"

"Actually it's going to force the merge point to overload thus forcing the energy back…Ah, basically correct." Foist ended quickly upon Cavaliers glare.

"But you have to have a direct hit at the spark merge point for it to work?"

"Yeah."

"And I seem to remember a little fact that each gestalts is in a different location based somehow on the composition of the individuals and the way they form up?"

"Yeah."

"So if this guy goes rogue upon merging, someone'll have to get close enough to a rampaging gestalt to scan for the point."

"Slider got the specs for these guys."

"Last I checked... the merge point does not show up on specs until after the fact. It was a surprise random variable that the labbies did not foresee. Monolith's would be a somewhat difficult shot due to the torso armor."

"All true, but Totality's would be pretty easy. His armor does not cover the location. So hopefully this new guys will be easy as well."

"I still can't believe that you're offering up a way to neutralize us. That is so not what we want the labbies or command having. As much as I respect the chain of command, I don't want to give them an off switch. And there are those with more power than our own command group."

"Command will never know about it."

"Famous last words Foist. Command won't know up until the point we have to use it. Even if you keep the design solely in your processor buried behind firewalls, they'll want it as soon as they see it. And face it, as soon as we merge, it's not just your processor that knows, it'll be all of ours."

"Yes, but knowing and actually accssessing are two different things. So everyone buries these memories deep behind our most secure firewalls. We'll be the only ones with it. And only the one rifle for now. It'll stay safe."

"Again, famous last words Foist. And the rest of you guys really are ok with this? Cavalier questioned as he looked again at the rest of the team.

"Maybe we should merge?" offered Gazer.

Perceptor's comm. unit announced a location ping targeted at him. He frowned, that had not happened during the discussion. The team had merged and everything had sorted itself out, so his comm. unit now fully buzzing at his failure to acknowledge was puzzling. Perceptor's optics flashed online in surprise, and he hastily yanked himself out of Cavalier's memory of the past event.

Perceptor shook himself and cycled air as the memory was buried behind firewalls again, then looked around the room he was currently in to get his bearings. As deeply as he had been in the memory, that kind of rushed exit was disorienting. Teletran sent his comm. unit another announcement of a location inquiry placed by Jazz. Perceptor smirked; the saboteur had been steadily increasing the difficulty level Perceptor had to go to, to avoid him as the days progressed.

Slider would have enjoyed this. But Jazz, as good as he was held nothing when compared to Slider; at least as far as Perceptor was concerned. Though the black and white Special Op's officer would probably disagree. Slider had had an amazing talent when it came to -as he had put it- sweet talking computers and their programming and getting them to do what he wanted; and Perceptor had access to all Slider's knowledge as well as the ability to utilize it. Perceptor sighed at the thought. Primus, he missed Slider. Primus, he missed the team. Primus he… He shook himself as he felt the danger and seductiveness of riding the teams' memories so quickly one after the next. Vorns ago he had made the choice to live rather than loose himself in memories. He had every intention of following thru on that choice no matter how painful.

Teletran sent a third announcement. Perceptor's initial thought that Jazz would not drop the comment about gestalt mates he'd let slip during the battle four days ago was apparently accurate and annoying. It was beginning to interfere with his work. He was really going to have to deal with the mech, but not at this moment. He had every intention of doing it on his own terms.

Quickly hacking into Red Alert's camera system thru hard link to a computer terminal, Perceptor flipped thru the camera images, scanning for candidates. Perfect, Hound and Trailbreaker were headed out. He moved on to Teletran and the Ark's locating system so that the next location ping for him would still ping him- so he'd still know-, but give Trailbreaker's location instead, then he backed his way out, shut down the computer and slipped out of the meeting room he'd been hiding in; headed for his lab. He made sure to go in the opposite direction the cameras had indicated Jazz was coming; passing more cameras that he'd just thrown into a temporary loop of empty hallways.

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	5. Chapter 5

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**Part **5

Perceptor came out of Foist's memories with the plans for the GN rifle readily available. He also had an adaptation that Foist had been toying with at one time. One designed specifically for the scopes and light cannon he and Gazer had possessed. It was an adaptation that had never been done but might still be possible. His current alt form still allowed for the light cannon ability, though his scope, instead of being macroscopic, was now microscopic. Oh course, according to Foist, the models kept showing that Perceptor would be overloaded and knocked off line after one shot, leaving him vulnerable in a battle. And that was a best case scenario. Though he already thought he saw a method to buffer that. Possibly. Maybe.

Of the teams memories regarding the GN rifle, Perceptor had saved Foist's for last. He'd felt that by looking at them, it was a commitment step of some sort. Foist's memories would force him to recall the plans and specs for the rifle. And once brought up from behind his most secure firewalls they would not be so easy to bury again.

Then there was the point that he wasn't sure if introducing such a weapon into this war was a wise idea. True they had been taking a pounding from the Decepticon gestalts recently. Bad enough that Perceptor had actually gone digging thru his team's memories for the one weapon he knew might help. He had never seen the Decepticons employ it, so he was pretty sure the design was lost, and the theory behind it lost as well. The exception being his memories. The adaptation of the GN rifle to his artillery cannon was a better, more secure route than the original form of a rifle. He should be able to do the majority, if not all of the work himself. The schematics would never leave his processor.

And there was always the chance that he would never need to use the weapon. If he did eventually use it, perhaps he would be lucky and his target would be Menasor or Bruticus. Neither team was scientifically or medically smart and the whole thing might get chalked up to a lucky shot.

Of course, if he did use the weapon, the Constructicons had a couple members smart enough to figure out the puzzle if they chose to pursue the involuntary disengagement of a fellow gestalt. Or themselves if Devastator was the target. Not a completely unreasonable thing to pursue knowing Scrapper and Hook. And they no doubt would look at the situation until they figured it out. And then they would probably create their own rifle or come up with something worse.

Until Foist and Tonic had created their little toy, the spark merge point had never been a weakness. The spark merge point formed in all gestalts. All gestalts were spark bonded. Some surgically as his team had been. Some created that way from the beginning, like the Aerialbots. In either case you had six individual sparks – five in the case of most of the modern gestalts- designed to act in a similar means to a naturally occurring split twin spark. Then, for added complexity, toss in some additional CPU bonds plus some more gestalt specifics that activated during a merge, and the energies of the sparks- not the sparks themselves- leaked towards each other as they suffused the entire gestalt eventually pooling together as a sort of phantom spark. This in a sense gave the formed gestalt its own ghostly spark which was scan-able if you knew to look for it and how to look for it. The location of the pooling varied in each gestalt though.

The GN rifle would negate the power of the Gestalts on both sides, and it would offer more risk to those same teams. Being popped apart by the rifle was disorienting and left the individuals venerable for an unsafe span of time if done in the midst of battle without comrades to protect and cover the gestalt members. Employing the weapon with a good battle plan in place could cost the target team their lives and Perceptor was not sure he wanted to be responsible for a gestalt team's death, no matter the faction.

Perceptor frowned, was this weakness really something he wanted to reveal? Even to his own faction? Or conversely, could he continue to function knowing that a fellow Autobot had died at the hands of an enemy gestalt because he had refused to build and employ a weapon that might have saved them? He had been honest in the information he had given the Autobots about gestalts. He had however omitted some things. The spark merge point being a big omission. Perceptor recognized the same discussion and arguments, plus some new ones for this old yet new situation, all over again, only this time, he was having it completely with himself. No wonder Cavalier had fretted over this so much. This line of thought could go on forever.

Back then the team had finally merged to clearly see what each member's position was. In the end, even though Monolith had agreed, Cav had still had reservations. Not enough to be detrimental to Monolith or the team, but there none the less. In the end, he had been the smart one.

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Ratchet had been in Perceptor's lab for near 15 minutes, with no acknowledgment from Perceptor except for the brief 'hello' and 'yes I can talk for a few minutes' he had received upon entering. Ratchet was leaning against the counter as Perceptor worked on what appeared to be his scope, laid out in pieces on a work table. Frustrated as usual when dealing with Wheeljack or Perceptor when either two mechs had plans on the CPU Ratchet finally broke the silence.

"Perceptor, what the frag is going on between you and Jazz. He has got his processor worked up something fierce over you being a member of a gestalt. And while I medically declared your comments as a quirk from the emergency re-boot, he's not excepting it. And with you playing hide and seek with him, you're not helping your own cause here. Toying with the head of our Special Operations team and the bond mate of our Second-in-Command is not one of your more brilliant plans for entertainment."

Perceptor cycled his systems cooling vents in a sigh and looked from the table where his scope lay as he worked on it. Looking back at this week following the last battle, Perceptor realized that he was indeed completely at fault in this. Even after the first slip, if he had thought the situation out and done some damage control right after the battle by letting Jazz seek him out, the whole incident could have been explained away on the battlefield re-boot. But he had been caught off by his slip and to fragged to think straight about it at the time. Toss on top his 'depressed more than usual' mood over his long ago lost teammates and he realized in short he had panicked.

"You are correct Ratchet. It was most certainly an ill prepared and executed plan on my part. I just had other issues on my processor –(_absolutely true)_- and dealing with Jazz as he pesters me about some non-sense comment_-(not true)-_ I made coming out of emergency re-boot was not high on my list of priorities –(_also not true)_. It was simply easier to avoid him for the time being (_completely true)_. I was unaware that I had avoided him for so long – (_almost true)._ Yes it was quite rude and unacceptable on my part – (_again true, but living in Sliders memories tend to cause that)_. I will have to remedy the situation. I will acquiesce to his desire for a discussion. "

Ratchet's optics dimmed as he glared at the scientist. While Perceptor's words had been fine, his body posture had suggested otherwise. It was nothing that most mechs would notice. He could name the mechs in the Ark on one hand who, besides himself would probably have clued in on it.

"Perceptor, are you sure there's not more to this than your letting on?"

"Other than the lack of re-charge due to too many thoughts and ideas running thru my processor? I assure you that I am fine."

"Something wrong with your scope? I could help you with it." Offered Ratchet as he changed tactics in his attempt to get Perceptor to talk, now that he had the microscopes attention.

"No, I really need to do this myself. In fact this is one of the thoughts and ideas I mentioned. I may however, seek Wheeljack out later on some other ideas." Perceptor's optics flashed and he quickly continued to eliminate the possible insult he had just delivered to his friend. "Not to suggest that you are incapable of helping me of course, since you are certainly qualified, it's just that Wheeljack and his eng…"

"Perceptor," Ratchet interrupted, "It's fine. I just want to make sure you're ok and see to it that you clear up whatever is going on between you and Jazz. I know you get into these weird moods occasionally, but this is not the mech to do this with. Primus above and below, you want to mess with a mechs CPU, pick someone who's use to it. Jack, myself or Beachcomber would be much better targets. Promise me you will quit avoiding the mech. Primus! You're lucky I'm familiar with your little mood swings. If I was any kind of paranoid, I'd be wondering by now if Jazz's thoughts AKA accusation doesn't have a ring of truth to it."

Perceptor who had gone back to working on his scope paused to show Ratchet he was actually listening and to consider Ratchets words. "Ratchet, all of my systems are running at optimum efficiency. I will meet with Jazz and get this all cleared up. Will that satisfy you as proof I am fine?"

"No it won't, but I'll accept it. It appears I have little choice. Just remember, you do have friends here who care about your well being and we are more than willing to listen if you have a problem. We can hold things in confidence you know. And I'm not just saying that as the Chief Medical Officer."

"Thank you Ratchet, I will talk with Jazz in the morning."

"And make sure you talk in a language he can understand."

"I was under the impression that he conversed in United States English."

Ratchet's optics narrowed, "I mean none of your above their CPU's talk. Talk with him like you would talk with myself or Jack in a normal casual conversation."

"I do not expect my conversation with Jazz to be normal or casual. You yourself have pointed out that I have 'toyed' with the wrong Mech."

Ratchet sighed and shook his head.

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Jazz had been talking with Hound and Trailbreaker when Perceptor entered the Rec room the next morning, headed for the energon dispenser, got himself a cube and with a nod at Jazz headed out.

It took Jazz a couple of seconds to really process what had just happened, then with a quick excuse to his companions he was up and headed out of the Rec room. _Unbelievable, the mech pulls a vanishing act that would make Mirage proud and avoids me for nearly a week, then strolls by as though nothing unusual has been going on._ Was Jazz's thought as he reached the hallway, only to stop as Perceptor had once again vanished. Skipping the location inquiry to Teletran as futile, Jazz chose the shortest route he knew to Perceptor's lab.

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	6. Chapter 6

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 6  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Jazz, Perceptor  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally  
**Universe:** G1-ish AU/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

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Thank you to everyone who has been reading and have also put this story on alert.

Extra thanks to **Misao-CG, Violetlight, Ksiezniczka, acer-sigma, AKAArzosah, Anita H **and** Kouun no Ookami** for the reviews. It is a huge boost to get positive feed back.

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**Part 6**

Jazz had arrived at Perceptor's lab to find the Scientist waiting for him. He honestly wasn't sure what to make of that since the bot had been avoiding him for a week. But it would surely fit with the way his morning was going.

Every time he'd gone looking for Perceptor over the past week he had failed to locate him. Even Teletran had been useless. And that in itself was interesting. So, a full day after talking with Ratchet and a good four days in; Jazz had chosen to ignore the CMO's warning and sought out Red Alert for help in locating the wayward microscope.

As far as locating Perceptor, that had been a dismal failure. As far as earning Jazz a very loud and long lecture that two thirds of the Ark's company had heard as well as a couple of dents to his armor, it had been successful. Red Alert had finally crashed late last night after fretting over Decepticons, traitors, and Primus only knew what other types of plots – most of which did involve Perceptor- for the past three days. After a full night of working on Red Alert; Jazz had been first on the Medics list this morning.

Toss on top of that the smiling looks from the crew members who had heard the lecture - pleased they weren't on the receiving end - the miffed look from Inferno a short time later, and the persistent unsympathetic thread of humor he could feel faintly in the background from Prowl – and though the tactician did not know the full reason for Ratchet's tirade, he was sure Jazz had earned every loud word and dent he'd received - Jazz had known this was going to be a very long morning, to say nothing about the rest of the day ahead. Then Perceptor had just waltzed into the rec room like nothing was wrong. As though he hadn't been MIA for the past seven days as far as it concerned the Porsche's attempts to talk with him.

Now Jazz followed Perceptor into his office just off the lab. Jazz had never been in here, having little enough reason to do so in the past, so as Perceptor took a seat, he took the opportunity to look around. It appeared to be set up more for relaxing that actual work.

While there was a small desk with chair and computer terminal tucked in the corner directly across from where he had entered, the rest of the furniture occupying the decent sized office consisted of a couch big enough for three Standard Class mechs, two matching chairs, a mismatched third chair and a long low table, all of which had seen better days, but appeared functional.

The walls were adorned with pictures of varying sizes. Some of scenes from Earth and some from Cybertron well before the war. Most were just scene captures, most likely taken from memory files Jazz realized; though there were two paintings of the Ark.

The first was how the Ark looked just prior to launch on Cybertron, its gleaming orange hull, highlighted further by various spotlights stood out amongst the cooler colors of their home world. The second as she currently lay buried was at sunset with all the colors in super bright hues of oranges, reds and yellows with the shadows in purples, blues and grays. A handwritten note tacked above both paintings read 'Everything Changes.'

As Jazz looked closer at the paintings he was surprised to see Sunstreaker's elegant signature on both. Though who else amongst the crew could have done paintings of this quality he didn't know.

"A request, he obliged," offered Perceptor from where he sat across the office.

"I didn't know you knew he was an artist. Very few do."

"And I don't seem the type who would know."

"Something like that." Jazz offered as he moved past the paintings to the next picture. It was large for a capture, though smaller than the paintings and consisted of six mechs standing together smiling, happy and relaxed. The background was undeterminable. Jazz paused here again to look at it. Perceptor was the only one he recognized, though even then, there had been some changes in his armor design since whenever the picture had been recorded. That he recognized none of the other mechs was not unusual. Many of the Arks crew had pictures of friends and comrades lost to the war. Perceptor's words though, did surprise him.

"They're who you came to see me about." Perceptor said quietly as he stepped up next to Jazz. "The blue and black with the visor is Slider."

Jazz could see that his helm was very similar to that of the blue and black mech in the picture and the visor further encouraged the similarity.

"The red and blue to his left is Gazer, our pilot. The three in back, starting on the left are Tonic, Foist and Cavalier. I was the recon scout and warrior. Together we formed the first of three gestalts ever created."

And with that, Perceptor reached out and tapped the frame of the picture next to the one of the team. Surprising Jazz, it changed from an Earth scene to that of a gestalt of red, black, blue, and white. Perceptor moved back to where he had been sitting, sinking down again.

"The first of three gestalts?" Jazz did not look back at Perceptor but studied the gestalt in the picture.

"Yes. Three gestalts eventually came out of the project."

"So you're saying that Devastator is not the first?"

"At best he is the fourth gestalt. The first of your modern gestalts. I don't know if the Decepticons came up with the technology on their own or if they found some or all of the original files on the program."

Jazz continued to look at the picture of the gestalt, but not really seeing it. Working to wrap his CPU around the idea that Percy was really part of a gestalt. Sure that was the question he had set out to answer, had in fact been pushed into answering by some deep unexplainable circuit and wires feeling. Yet he realized that somewhere deep in his CPU, just as unexplainable despite what he had told Ratchet; he had believed himself to be on a 'wild goose chase' as the humans would say. And now, not only was Percy part of a gestalt, he was part of one completely unknown to the Autobots. The whole situation was headed down the path of the surreal for Jazz.

Jazz focused back on the picture of the six mechs again. He placed each mech in their respective positions within the gestalt. Still looking between the two pictures, unwilling quite yet to look at Perceptor, Jazz spoke. "You formed the torso."

It wasn't really a question, just a statement, but Perceptor answered anyway. "Yes."

"I wouldn't think you large enough for that position."

"I do happen to possess mass conversion abilities." Perceptor replied dryly.

Oops. He'd known that. Between the two sizes of Perceptor's alt form plus his robotic form the other option was parts compression. He knew Perceptor's armor was just too good for the compression method which was fine for casseticons, but far from efficient for larger bots; as Broadside could attest to.

Perceptor continued, unaware of Jazz's self berating. "All of us were Standard Class size mechs but we all possessed the ability. Monolith would have massed in the range of Defensor, Bruticus and Menasor. Superion would be a bit heavier, Devastator more so."

"That particular ability is not common. We've killed so many of our people. Was it more so before the war? "

"In my time, it wasn't common, nor was it uncommon."

"Is that ability a requirement?"

"For the first three it was; else we would never have massed enough for an advantage when combined. But Devastator is a simply a good example of a gestalt comprised completely of Olympic Class bots. I suspect the Stunticons have the ability since Motormaster is Imperial Class and the rest of his team are Standard. But size and class aside, back in my time, there was a lot of care and effort put into finding the right mechs to make the Gestalt experiment work. First and foremost, we all had an inherent encoded predisposition for the gestalt process to be successful. Without that, even with the CPU tinkering, body reformatting, spark bonding and mass conversion abilities we would not have been able to tolerate the physical and mental combination. With the number of factors that needed to be met, we were all targeted long before we had even heard of Gestalt Industries. We just didn't know it."

"Targeted?"

"They didn't just pick the first six mechs they came across on the street for this Jazz. We were all in various circumstances that would make the offer look nice." Perceptor's optics dimmed a bit as he remembered. Then he continued. "Even with the bonds revealing everything, I thought they only got Slider because of me, but even if we'd not been rooming together, or our circumstances different, they would have got him. We just might not have been on the same team but he'd been marked as a primary target as well." Perceptor shook himself, now was not the time to go get lost in a memory.

Jazz turned around and flopped down in the couch, looking at Perceptor. Yes surreal might be a good description. "Huh, it's funny; I've been after you for the past seven days and I really believed that once I found you, this was all going to come down to a battlefield quirk, and you were just embarrassed. I should have lots of questions that I want to ask, as well as questions that need to be asked. And now, with you sitting here having flat out confirmed you're a member of a gestalt team, I don't know where to start. I think you've stalled my CPU Percy." Jazz said with an easy smile.

For all that Perceptor had basically set this meeting up and needed to get this over with he was unwilling –for the moment- to lead the conversation any more than he already had. Ultimately he would have to take over, but till then… so he sat and watched Jazz.

Jazz realized Perceptor was not going to offer anymore. "Fine, I guess the first question now is where's the rest of your gestalt?"

"Dead."

"No. You're here so they must be somewhere nearby. And I sure want to know where they've been hiding all this time, and how they got here in the first place."

"Perceptor looked at Jazz, sorrow crossing his features, "trust me, I'd be the first to know if they were alive."

"No. All I've read on gestalts says they periodically have to merge and all and if you kill one member of a gestalt, you've killed the team. Maybe not immediately, but within the following orn at most, they'll all be dead."

"And do you know who provided most of the information we have about gestalts?" Perceptor asked with a quirked optic ridge.

"Ratchet said that…wait you lied to us?" And Jazz realized he wasn't sure if he was surprised or not.

"No! No, I did not lie. Every piece of information I offered up about gestalts is the truth. I just… omitted… certain pieces of information. You don't realize it, and I doubt anyone else does either, or I am sure I would have had a few questions by now, but some of the information contained in my report would not have been… obtainable if I did not know of it from firsthand experience. Our two gestalt teams are too young to realize or even understand the true depth of half of it, and their skill sets for the most part are not geared toward understanding it anyway. They may never understand some of it. They expect and except everything the gestalt is, because they know nothing else. My team existed for 72 hundred vorns. But we weren't created gestalt.

"Just when did these teams exist?"

"The last of the first gestalts were destroyed approximately 48 hundred vorns before the beginning of your war. Before the Autobots found me, at the time we died, Cybertron was well into the heyday of its Golden Age. And the tiniest, smaller than small hint that it would all end up in a great civil war that would destroy our planet had just broken on the horizon. Our biggest threat wasn't on Cybertron. It was to and from experimental colonies that had been set up on distant worlds. That was the reason for the CCC, and the gestalts. Though now I'm positive the ultimate reason for the gestalt studies was for war machines. The third and final gestalt team proved that actually. And Devastator is further proof."

"What's the CCC? I've never heard of it."

"CCC is or rather was Cybertron Colonial Command. Sound vaguely militaristic to you? They were. They were and were not officially sanctioned. By the time of Monolith's death, the CCC was the best known defunct but not; secret agency around. If you worked for the Council Senate, you knew we were active, if you were a civilian, you knew the agency had been disbanded and the colonies abandoned, with the exception of a few mining ones, as a failure vorns ago."

"Some story."

"It's the truth. I don't want my past as common knowledge. I am talking with you because I slipped up, then I panicked. I owe you the explanation. I need you to understand."

"Riiight. So either you've lied to us since the beginning, or you didn't, or you're lying to me, or you're not. Or your just plain lying. Or you're not. This really clears things up."

"I already told you none of the information I gave the Autobots regarding gestalts is a lie. I just omitted some things. I am not lying to you about having once been part of a gestalt team. And that is a piece of trivia that as common knowledge would benefit no one. I am not lying to you about the rest of my team being terminated. The pain is something I would not wish on my enemies even. I wish my team were still alive. That I am alive and my team is not is a mystery to me that I have spent vorns since my re-activation trying to understand. I have some theories about my survival, but my files immediately following Sliders death are corrupted."

"Yeah, corrupted memory files are always convenient for a liar, traitor or espionage agent."

Perceptor's optics flashed briefly in anger. "Omitting some information dies not make me a liar. If it did, Sideswipe would hold the honors for that title on a daily basis. But no one gets on his case for omitting facts. Do you honestly think he would be able to tell the truth all the time if he told the whole truth? And I find it hard to believe that you report everything in your mission reports. In fact, as the command officer of Special Operation's; knowing when to omit items is one of those needed, but not talked about requirements. You have no right to call me a liar because I omitted information regarding my past. And I know I am not the only Bot of this faction to have done so."

"Yes, but these other bots didn't omit to being part of a gestalt team."

"If espionage is your concern, there are far easier ways for a traitor to operate than being separated from his gestalt team! And how do you know none of the others are part of a gestalt? You didn't even know that I had once been part of one."

"So your team is alive then."

"No! No! No! They are dead! Dead! Dead! And Perceptor was practically wailing by the last word.

Jazz jerked and continued to look at Perceptor, surprised by the vehemence and emotion behind the answer from the bot he had always known to be pretty mild in attitude. "You know, I just realized this is the most understandable conversation I think I have ever had with you."

Perceptor frowned and looked at the ceiling as he reigned in the emotions that threatened to slip loose even further than they had already done. Then looked back to the Saboteur wondering if the change in topic was meant to unbalance him more than he already was.

"This is closer to how I used to talk." Perceptor began mildly. "The ability to break everything down into dry facts that bore everyone around me or the big absent minded beyond the CPU science talk I utilize now is part of the cover I developed upon on lining in the Autobots medical bay in Iacon. Foist liked to use big over the CPU words and phrases that actually had simple translations, though he had actually given it up for the most part when talking with the team after a few vorns of being gestalt bonded." Perceptor paused as he thought about Foist.

Then he continued. "In fact, the brilliant scientific intelligence you all think me to be? Is an act. Well it started as an act, but I found with the memories of my gestalt mates as reference I actually have a CPU up to the task. It's funny though, what makes me brilliant in this day and age, only made my teammates average amongst the science community of our time. You don't realize the true amount of information that has been lost in your war. Or over time. I really don't know which."

"So more lies?"

"No lies Jazz, this is who I am now."

"And what were you?"

"A member of a gestalt team."

And Jazz leaned forward a scowl obvious with the tone of his voice. "Don't test me Percy, I'm having enough trouble with this as it is. And I'm the _adaptable_ Officer among this command."

Perceptor flinched then spoke in a carefully measured neutral non threatening tone. "I was a scout and warrior with a specialty in Organic Studies." Perceptor paused again, then continued. "Before that I was an adventure guide for bots with too much time and credits, looking for excitement on nearby organic planets or in the wastelands. And before that, my first job, the one I was created for?… I was an…expert agent… in the illicit procurement of others valuables. Hence my name. I was expert at perceiving that which was hidden."

Jazz stared; sure, everything he'd thought he'd known about Perceptor was being turned upside down this morning, but what Perceptor had just claimed? That on its own was coming close to being equal in the world of the surreal that Jazz was currently muddling through.

"You're a thief?" Jazz questioned in disbelief.

"I prefer my description, but yes yours works as well."

"You're a thief?" Jazz question again

"Was a thief. And amongst previous revelations and those yet to come, I would think that one to be relatively minor."

"Well true I'm sure, but you really, really don't seem the type."

"Hmm, and I suppose Sunstreaker's not and Artist?"

"Point. So your team is supposedly dead?"

"They are dead."

"You have yet to prove that. Pit! You have yet to prove any of this is true or not. For all I know, this could be some elaborate prank of Sideswipe's. And he's sitting back laughing his aft off at my attempts to track you down."

"I seriously doubt that Sideswipe would approach me for help with a prank, or that I would give it."

"Yes, that does seem the logical conclusion, which is all the more reason that this would work. So how'd they die?"

It took a moment as Perceptor caught up with the switch back to the main topic. His optics dimmed and he shifted his gaze to the far wall over Jazz's shoulder. "We were doing our job…assisting a colony planet when the…aggressors killed Slider. As I mentioned, the last uncorrupted file I have of that battle is Sliders death. The pain of my processor, my spark, everything I was being ripped and torn asunder. I don't recommend the experience." Perceptor finished dryly looking back at Jazz.

"How have you been able to avoid me finding you? I in fact, reluctantly compliment you on switching yours and Trailbreaker's locators. It was very classy. Sly computer talent is not one of your listed skills."

"They're not my skills, at least most of them aren't. They belonged to Slider. And while I can imitate his skills because within me I have all that he was, I'm not as quick solving a problem if he himself never encountered it. The same really goes for all the skills I have borrowed from my teammates in service to the Autobots. Procurement, scouting and fighting skills are mine alone, and the ones I use the least now."

Jazz pursued "So why not advertise the computer skills or the fighting ones. You handled Dirge pretty well, especially considering you were dealing with that blasted sub-sonic tune of his. A bot with skills like those could be useful in a lot of places."

"Fighting Dirge is easy, even as out of practice as I am. Not to dismiss his talents as a warrior, but he's come to rely too much on his sub-sonics to turn his targets into whimpering puddles of fear before engaging. In facing me though, he faced a bot that lives with his greatest fear every day. My team is dead and I live with the feelings and fear of loss and the pain. I cannot emphasize enough how little there is to fear when you live your worst fear every day."

"I'm not sure I can understand that." Offered Jazz

"No, you can't." was the simple reply

"You're obviously good at what you do Perceptor, but if you were a warrior, why not continue?"

"The simple truth is I was tired of being a warrior and to confused and depressed at the time I on-lined in Ratchet's Med Bay to think overly clear, I wanted nothing to do with what had left me disoriented and in pain. And a computer slicer meant utilizing Sliders memories too often. Plus on a selfish level, I was use to the privileges of Rank that were mine as a result of being a gestalt in the CCC. Science, Medical or Engineering would give me the Rank, without the responsibility of having to command troops on a regular basis. That I became head of the Science Division, or that I did it so quickly was a surprise. And I am not about to change direction this late in the game because I slipped up with you." Of course, Perceptor realized that with Jazz having this knowledge, he might have to change anyway.

"Perceptor, I want to believe you, your record speaks for itself, but the potential security risk you pose is huge. And there's really no way to confirm what you're saying. Ratchet has sai…" and Jazz trailed off. Ratchet had said that Perceptor scanned like a normal bot, which according to the CMO would be impossible if Perceptor was bonded, gestalt or otherwise.

"How have you fooled Ratchet and any other Medic who's ever scanned or worked on you? Ratchet said a gestalt member scans differently than non gestalts."

Perceptor's optics dimmed as he paused before subspacing the façade chips. He'd thought of different ways to resolve this situation he had created with Jazz, finally desiding that full disclosure was the best choice. But the facades were so very important to his ability to hide amongst his peers, where sensor scans were a routine part of daily life.

Jazz watched as Perceptor subspaced from a pocket a couple of items that resembled data chips, only about triple the thickness and handed them over. Jazz reached and accepted the offerings and examined them. They really did look like nothing more than thickened data chips.

"Those are system facades. Very specially designed. There are various ports under my armor for those. They sync with my system and create a false signature to lay over my real one. It'll read as natural every time. It only takes one to pull off, the rest are redundant in case of damage. Which while not as important in my time, where the frequency of damage causing situations was far less, but invaluable in this war. They were standard equipment for all the gestalt teams because the gestalt process was beyond top secret. They were of course in place when I was first brought out of stasis by Ratchet. And I could hardly go from scanning as a normal un-bonded mech, to one with shattered bonds. Gestalt or otherwise."

"Percy," Jazz said seriously as he found his normal humor in the Microscopes flinching at the name gone, "You're sounding very black ops. And I gotta tell you, that's not a good thing at the moment from my position."

Perceptor leaned forward towards Jazz, locking his optics on the visor, just as serious, "Let me make you an offer. There's only one way, whether you realize it or not, for you to confirm my history and the truth of everything I've told you. I'm willing to let you deep level interface with me to prove what I have told you is the truth."

Jazz smirked to himself. "Thanks," he drawled "but I don't think Prowl would take that very well."

Perceptor broke contact with Jazz's visor and shook his head, then continued with a trace of frustration in his voice. "Yes, I am well aware of you affiliation with Prowl. However interfacing wasn't always about pleasure. Only in your more modern times with the creation of the central hubs did that become the more prominent thought regarding that term." He paused and sighed. "Let me re-phrase. I am willing to offer you an uplink with my systems. A full uplink. It's all about business Jazz."

+-+-+-+-

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 7  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Jazz, Perceptor, Slider  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally  
**Universe:** G1-ish/ Monolith AU  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

* * *

FYI- _:speaking in a bond:_

* * *

**Part 7**

Behind his visor Jazz's optics widened. Uplinking to another bots systems as he understood the term was completely different than interfacing. Casual interfacing never went beyond surface thoughts and physical environment, unless you were bonded of course. Any bot could drop their first level securities and plug into another for a more intense romp in a berth. There was no more effort or risk involved than when re-connecting to a hub to update and be updated on the goings on after an absence.

The hubs had been the last great achievement to come from the Golden Age. By the time the war broke some thirty three hundred vorns later; they were a central part of Cybertronian life and had remained so through the war. As the hubs had been established the individual uplinking software had become medical specific and it was the extremely rare non medical bot who carried the software these days. And while some might find it surprising given his chosen war time profession, Jazz did not have the software required for sliding thru the deeper levels of an individual bots system. Saboteur did not equal interrogation.

"How deep will I need to go?" Jazz questioned thoughtfully.

"Pretty deep, the memory chain for events affecting me in regards to my gestalt is deep. And I'm not going to be able to help much, so you're going to have to break some firewalls." Was Perceptor's response

Jazz sighed through his cooling system. If he had to start breaking firewalls instead of using the safeguards of the software – which he didn't have - he could very well destroy Perceptor unintentionally. "I don't have the software."

"I did not expect that you would and it wouldn't matter even if you did. That's why I said you were going to have to break some firewalls. To ensure the security of the gestalt, much of the CPU tinkering that was done for the gestalt became in and of itself a security program. To allow anything more than basic syncing with an outside source was considered too risky for the gestalt. I'm already bonded to my team, there can never be another; there should never have been a need for another. Thus, the ability for deep reconfiguring was not considered a loss by the Lab Techs. Now, I'll use my software to grant you access, but you're going to have to force everything else since only a medical bot with the id markers or my own teammates can slip through beyond that. And you certainly don't qualify for either of those categories."

"You sure we can't just do this thru Teletran? Or a data disk?" Jazz so very much did not want to do this no matter how fools proof this would make the information.

"Even when connected to the various hubs as I have been in the past, even with the option of using Teletran to hub for this, I would never do it. I'm taking a huge risk giving you access to some of what you could see. But you need this information and I'm willing to do what will be required to share it with you. After all, I did bring this upon myself. But you in turn, need to do what will be required to get it, and unfortunately for me that means you will have to jack my system."

"Hubs make the transfer of information so much easier." Jazz sighed.

"Yes I suppose they do. But they also increase the risk of information getting into the wrong hands."

"Do you have a lot of experience with up linking? And I mean the kind you're telling me I need to do." Jazz questioned

Perceptor eyed the Saboteur for a few moments before answering. "Even in my day, the need to go beyond first level for information in an uplink was rare but that's why we had the software."

Perceptor paused in his explanation. He hadn't really answered Jazz's question, but he didn't think his amount of experience or lack was the real question Jazz wanted answered. No, he was pretty sure Jazz wanted more information on what he was going to have to do.

Perceptor continued "The more firewalls, securities and systems that get reconfigured for a bot during an interface, excuse me, an uplink, the higher the risk of forming an unintentional bond. That is the reason for the software, it allowed for accessing deeper levels without having to configure each other's systems for whomever we were sharing files with. But it was not a perfect guarantee against an unintentional bond that's why my gestalt bonds prevent anything beyond the first level. A bond intentional or otherwise, no matter how it might have paled in comparison to my team bonds would still have been disastrous for the gestalt. So while I cannot voluntarily drop most of my firewalls, they can be broken. And while I won't be able to help you much, there is a lot I could do to hinder you, so I'll be trying very hard not to. Now, this is the date stamp you want to start with and the approximate location." Perceptor finished as he subspaced a datapad and handed it to Jazz.

Jazz accepted the pad and looked it over. He could admit it to himself, he was nervous. He was delaying. Hacking hubs and stand alone computer systems was one thing, jacking a fellow bot entirely different. That by Primus was what interrogators and tortures did. For all his skills and life experience he had never been the instigator of a bot to bot uplink for information. The hubs had all been online at the time of his creation so there had never been a need. Sure Medics had linked with him in the past, but that's what medics did. Now as Perceptor sat across from him, their chairs pulled close to face each other, Jazz saw resignation along with fear in his optics. Jazz reached out and took hold of the wrist Perceptor offered.

"I could stick this all on a data disk for you Jazz, but you could never be sure I hadn't failed to give you something." Perceptor said sadly. "Plus the disk while informative, would lack the full effect. And a disk is no more secure than the hubs. And I'm the one who's being jacked into here. Any pain you feel should be negligible." Perceptor recognized his babbling for what it was and stopped.

Jazz revved his engine in annoyance to cover his unease. Then pulled a cord from his wrist and before thinking too much more on it, shifted his grip to Perceptor's forearm and plugged into Perceptor's wrist port.

Though Perceptor had not configured his system for Jazz, he had activated his uplink software and it was ready to accept Jazz's presence. Thus no alarms flared when the Saboteur entered as the software readied to assist in the retrieval, transmittal and sharing of files. Jazz took a moment to poke around the program seeing the differences between what this software did versus how a mech adjusted their own firewalls for a simple but intense berth romp. Then Jazz gathered his thoughts, readied his own systems and slipped from the program moving to go deeper.

Perceptor flinched as tinges of pain hit and alarms flashed on his HUD that his systems were being breached. Queries were being sent for him to activate additional defenses. He shut off the warnings and tossed off some coding in an attempt to temporarily convince his firewalls that nothing was wrong. It wouldn't last he knew. The labbies had known what they were doing when they had tinkered with his CPU and it was quite capable of initiating the basic defense plan on its own when it realized Perceptor was not responding to the threat. Though without Perceptor helping, 'simple' was as complicated as it was going to get. Still, his firewalls were excellent and quite durable, though not impenetrable. Perceptor flinched again and a moan of pain escaped his vocalizer. Jazz had just broken the first firewall.

Jazz gave Perceptor's arm a squeeze as an act of comforting support even as he worked to break another firewall while countering the simple yet persistent and annoying defensive attacks. Another wall down and Jazz paused, again looking for the coding that would indicate he was in the vicinity of the file he wanted. Perceptor had said deep, and the information on the datapad had indicated the same. With Preceptor's defenses hounding him, Jazz realized he was going to have to do something creative otherwise when he locate the files he'd never get to look at them. He paused to gather himself before the next firewall. Then in a particularly vicious move he attacked the firewall at the same time launching advanced coding of his own at every other firewall he could currently perceive. The attack on multiple fronts worked and Jazz distantly heard a shrieking scream of pain and felt Preceptor's attempts to pull free physically from Jazz as firewalls shattered all around exposing Perceptor's mind, his feelings, programs, memories, everything that the scientist was.

And in a blink Jazz was overwhelmed with loss, pain, anguish, guilt, fear, misery, hopelessness. The negative feelings were everywhere, pervading everything that was Perceptor. So invasive were the feelings Jazz found himself loosing perspective. Nearing panic as he himself became lost further in the whirlwind of despair Jazz franticly reached for his own bond seeking to reassure himself that it was intact and that Prowl still lived.

_:Jazz?:_

Jazz latched onto that voice, wrapping all that was Prowl, all that he himself was, all that his bond was around him like a blanket.

_:Jazz!:_

_:Sorry: he sent as he worked to gain control. _

_:What was that?:_

_:You felt all that?: _

_:Yes:_

_:Sorry, bad memory, I'm good now:_

_:You're sure? This is… unusual:_

_:I'm sure, gotta go:_ and Jazz firmly shut Prowl out. He had no time to explain now. He needed to get through this.

As he turned his attention back to the uplink he discovered that throughout his panic, he had somehow managed to stay firmly entrenched in Perceptor's systems. As he refocused his attention back to his task, he suddenly understood how and why Perceptor could have faced Dirge and not found it debilitating. Then he shoved the emotional whirlwind to the background like he would with a song on his radio. He could do this. Jazz could feel Perceptor had stopped his struggle and was forcing his body to relax once more as the pain from the shattered firewalls began to slowly recede.

Then Jazz found the date stamp Perceptor had said started it all.

/\/\/\

As Perceptor entered his quarters, a quick glance around the small main room confirmed that his roommate was back from break as well. Perceptor had been the last of the two of them to leave for the break and the place had been in far better condition upon his departure than it was now upon his return. Not that Perceptor would consider himself an orderly mech, but Slider was certainly less so than him. It always fascinated him that a mech of Sliders creation background could be so untidy. The couch, spare chair, desks as well as desk chairs and the counter in the energon storage area were all stacked with a variety of items. From the looks of things it seemed Slider had been back for several cycles at least, but again, knowing Slider he had probably only been back for a couple of joors.

"Slider?" Perceptor called out as he headed towards the room where the berths were to drop his gear.

"Cep. Welcome back buddy. Was the call from the wash room beyond the berths.

Perceptor stepped to the doorway and looked in. "Slider, the name is Perceptor. After this many vorns I would expect you to understand this."

"And after this many vorns I would expect you to be glad I don't call you Percy."

"Hmpf." Perceptor's shudder was followed by a smile at the familiar response to his routine complaint. "So when'd you get back?"

"Oh, a few joors ago. How was your break?"

"I got to spend it with a group of your former peers."

"Oh? And what are the slaggers up to these days?"

"Taking guided trips into the wastelands or to organic planets."

"I can sorta understand the whole organic planet thing, well ok, I can't, but why the wastelands?"

"For the danger of it I'm sure. It's not really my position to ask why. Just to guide and make sure they all return in functioning condition."

"Slaggers." was Sliders response as he moved out of the wash rack past Perceptor and into the main room where he sat down at his desk and computer having shoved the occupying stacks out of the way.

Perceptor followed his roommate out and after clearing the stack from his own desk chair sat down. "So how was your break?"

The dark blue and black Standard Class sized bots optics glowed brighter causing the blue visor they hid behind to glow a tad more brightly. "Oh, the usual, busy transferring lots of credits for this next set of classes."

"He's going to catch you one of these times."

Slider laughed at that. "Sure Cep. Just like he has the past however many vorns I've been doing it. There ain't nobody better at hacking and slicing than me. But if it makes you feel any better, I went for a couple of senators expense accounts. They should have a fun time explaining where the credits went to the watch groups." And Slider followed it up with another laugh.

"Frag, you are becoming a criminal."

"I'm only a criminal if I get caught. Isn't that what you used to say? And I'm not going to get caught. Besides these are the same guys who are responsible for your scholarship being cancelled. What was the excuse you got?" Slider paused as if he had forgotten though Perceptor knew better. "Oh yes, lack of funding available for the continued support of non-productive areas of study." He paused then continued slyly, "You know, I was going to put it all in your accounts. Then maybe you wouldn't have to spend every break and cycle you have off working."

Perceptor exploded, frantic "You didn't! I …"

Slider interrupted "I said 'was,' you dumb aft. Who am I to stop a mech from working during every free moment he has."

"I enjoy scouting and guiding." Perceptor defended

"Yeah I know, and I don't give you grief about it, so don't go giving me grief about my hobby."

"My hobby as you call it relates very well to my chosen field of study, plus it's legal."

"Yeah, well I can see how guide work compliments Organic Studies." Slider replied sarcastically.

"Hey now, one does need to be able to scout when studying organics. And your one to talk! How does Art have anything to do with the best computer skills on the planet? You should be in some sort of computer track; programming or tech work, or if you're really out to frag off your creator, then the martial academy. They I'm sure they can always use good computer cryptographers."

"Because the last thing I want is to be stuck on some stupid remote outpost guarding a bunch of low life colonists. And that is exactly where my attitude would land me. No, I'm a civilian city bot. I like the good life." Slider paused then added "besides, I might get stuck to close to you, because that my friend is most definitely where Organic Studies take place. And Art is the furthest thing from computers I have any skill at."

"And that skill is not very good." Perceptor responded frankly.

"It's passable." Slider defended.

"Not if you want to make a career of it." And Perceptor waved off the retort he knew was coming. "So how about you use those computer skills of yours and tell me if I've got any interesting messages waiting for me."

Perceptor watched as Slider quickly accessed the academy's systems and pulled up Preceptors comm. log. "Hmm, let's see, creator, creator, co-creator, co-creation, academy registration, creator, man don't you contact them when you're on break? Oh, here ya go, academy finance department, we already know what that one says. Your employer, didn't you just see him? And Gestalt Industries."

Perceptor sighed, Slider knew exactly why he did not contact his creators very often. All those two wanted was for Perceptor to grow out of the 'current phase' he was in and rejoin the unit business. Perceptor wanted nothing more to do with being a thief though. Over the vorns he had paid his creators back many times over - so to speak- for his creation. Now he was going to do something real. That's why everything he had done since breaking from them had been very straight and legal.

But Slider was correct, he had to spend his entire free time working to earn much needed credits. Since leaving his creation unit, he had learned that making an honest living was a lot harder than making an un-honest one. Especially when you were as good as he had been at said un-honest job. There were cycles when the unit business looked very good. Especially with a roommate who at times seemed to be on the opposite path of Perceptor . That was probably why they were still roommates. They each understood the other. Both were above the below and below the upper when it came to living. Perceptor shifted his thoughts back to the messages.

"Gestalt Industries? What's that one say?"

"Uh, let's see, we blah blah blah, participants yadda yadda, extra credits, if interested contact." Slider looked back at Perceptor. Translation, their looking for saps who need extra credits to participate as 

glitch mice in a study. Looks like a couple cycles every orn, and you get paid for your time. Sounds like some sort of a scam if you ask me."

"Huh, check them out for me. If their legit, put the info on a datapad for me."

A couple breems later Slider handed over the datapad. "The company's legit, but there is some heavy, bad aft encryption in areas of their system. I might have to give it a look sometime when I'm bored. Oh, and this study is a contract from Cybertron Colonial Command." Slider watched in silence for a moment as Perceptor read the entire message. "You're not really thinking of doing that are you?

Perceptor looked up at Slider. Not all of us are super hackers with super wealthy creators. I need to consider any sources of credits I can. If this fits my schedule, and it's really as easy as they are advertising, you know I need to consider it."

"Just run a job or two for your unit if you really need the credits." There had never been any doubt about it in Perceptor's processor, Slider was impressed that his roommate was a thief. And apparently a good one for the amount of vorns he'd done it and never been caught. The problem was Slider did not understand the intricacies involved with being in the top of the business. He felt that for a bot created to be a thief, it should be as easy as the hacking of computer systems was for him.

Perceptor huffed in exasperation. "I'm not blowing off vorns of hard work just to risk it all on a job. The last thing I need is to be caught by law mechs and marked. Besides, you already said they're legit."

"Yes, but it's the CCC!" Slider exclaimed

"Just because that's where the funding comes from, doesn't mean I'm working for them."

"You keep telling yourself that. And after a pause Slider continued "let me know how it goes though. If it's as easy as they're saying maybe I'll join you."

Perceptor gave him a long disbelieving stare. "You work? Since when?"

"Hey now, you're always saying I need to get a job. Learn how a slagging real bot makes a living. Right? Might as well give this one a try." Slider smiled

/\/\/\

* * *

Thank you to **Library Drone SAR, Elariel, Truth of Barricade, acer-sigma, lilyoftheval5, ShiTiger, Ksiezniczka** for the helpful reviews on the last chapter.

**ShiTiger:** Somehow, I think more of the command staff is going to learn as a result of this. Once a secret this big breaks, there's usally fall out at some point.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 8  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Jazz, Perceptor, Slider, the Monolith Team, Monolith  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally  
**Universe:** G1-ish/ Monolith AU  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

* * *

A/N - The first 2/3rds or so is just a mess, but no matter what I did, what route I took, it just would not get any better - however I'm pretty pleased with the ending.

* * *

_FYI - :Speaking in a bond:_

**Part 8**

Jazz moved on through Perceptor's memories skimming with the skill of a bot who knew how to find pertinent information buried amongst less useful information.

Perceptor met with Gestalt Industries. Perceptor and Slider both signed onto the study. A study on the CPU supposedly. Ways to make it more efficient and secure. In Perceptor's mind that had explained the extremely decent amount of credits each was paid. CPU's weren't supposed to be messed with unless a problem arose. And if that happened, it was probably to late anyway.

For Perceptor, easy honest credits were a big draw for the untagged former thief. He believed that his computer hacking roommate, who regularly relieved his wealthy creator of credits on an as needed basis, saw the job as merely a lark. So he could claim a 'real' job. A few cycles every orn the two reported to the lab where they off lined for the Scientists and Lab Technicians to tinker with their CPU's. Neither saw any noticeable changes. Jazz found the mundane routine memory files dull in some ways yet fascinating in others; as they showed a Cybertron he had never known.

For a time, life continued as usual for Perceptor and his roommate with classes, avoiding creators who wanted creations back, guiding trips to the wastelands, numerous everyday discussions between the roommates and most prominently, visiting energon bars and getting cratered. It was a life that Jazz would never have believed of Perceptor except that he was getting these memories directly from Perceptor's files. The memories were so normal that Jazz was beginning to wonder if he was in the correct files at all when several meta-cycles from where he had started, he came across a flagged file. It was of the visit to the lab just after Slider had remembered his plan to hack Gestalt Industries systems sometime when he was bored and though he hadn't found much, it had triggered something apparently.

/\/\/\

Perceptor on-lined not to the pale blue ceiling of the lab, but to a dark grey one. It got his attention. A quick panicked look around and he confirmed Slider's presence. The blue and black bot was still off line, though the hum of his systems as Perceptor stepped over to him indicated he was re-booting. The panic tried to resurface as he scanned the room but Perceptor ruthlessly squashed it down again. It would do 

him and Slider no good. He needed to think. Except for the two recharge berths, and one table the room was bare. The one door in – or out depending on how one viewed it – was locked.

Slider sat up abruptly and Perceptor moved down the side of the berth. "Hey, you ok?"

"Ugh, I feel like I'm coming off an energon binge. Where are we?"

Perceptor arched an optic and a small tight smile crossed his lips before being replaced by a frown. "I don't know. Last thing I remember was off lining in the lab."

"Ugh. Yeah that's my last memory also." Agreed Slider.

/\/\/\

Jazz skimmed over the following deca-cycle as the two spent the entire time in the grey room with only themselves for company. Energon was supplied regularly from a panel in the door. But other than each other, they saw and heard no one. Then a garishly colored purple, red and yellow mech came in with four guards and quickly, succinctly, no questions asked or allowed explained the way of things. Perceptor and Slider learned they were officially dead. No one would miss the two bots as they were the only casualties in their living complex when a power generator mysteriously exploded taking out several floors. They were now a part of the CCC. A highly secret part. And when the mech was done speaking the two were escorted out and to a waiting shuttle.

Jazz skimmed the next few cycles until he found himself in a barracks style room as Perceptor and Slider met their soon to be gestalt mates.

Tonic was a medical student. He'd been a couple meta cycles shy of earning his full surgeons crosses. Still, as far as Perceptor was concerned he had an impressive resume already having specialties in Molecular and Analytical Chemistry. In addition to the specialties, he was a fully trained and qualified Medical Technician before deciding being a Medical Surgeon was what he wanted. Tonic quickly pointed out that compared to regular scientists; he was merely average having only two specialties. The med tech stuff didn't count in the science world. To which Perceptor had responded that to the average Cybertronian, Tonic would seem as smart as Primus. His roommate through it all had been Foist.

Foist was also a highly intelligent bot. He was almost a certified engineer in a three different fields and almost a design architect as well. Problem was he wanted to be a professional student so he always switched tracks a meta-cycle shy of completion. Thus Tonic had been an excellent roommate. When asked about his name, "because it sorta makes you sound lazy and you don't seem interested in completing anything," Slider had suggested, Foist had laughed, saying it used to be Hoist, but the academy had misspelled it in a slip, and he'd gone with it ever since, enjoying the joke. He was a fun easy personality to be around and the group quickly learned he was anything but lazy, getting near to the top marks in almost anything he chose to do. Along with Tonic, he had 'died' when a CPU damaged mech went on a rampage at the medical center where Tonic was working. They had been the only two 'hostage victims' of the damaged mech when he finally blew himself up.

Gazer was a transport pilot and hobby astronomer. He' d been a pilot for some time having been created for that task. He was a quiet reserved mech and though the entire team was still young by Cybertronian standards -a mere twenty-three vorns was all that separated the youngest from the oldest- Gazer was the oldest of the group, beating Perceptor for the dubious title by several vorns. Joining the study had been a way to earn extra credits to get upgrades for his astronomy interests. Unlike Tonic and Foist he was of very average intelligence. He'd 'died' when the shuttle he was piloting had booster failure causing the whole thing to explode. His only comment regarding the whole entire situation the six found themselves in was "At least they made sure we weren't at fault for our own deactivations."

The final mech, Cavalier was the only one of them who came from the Martial Academy. Though a Standard Class mech he was sub-classed as a battle model. With above average intelligence he had been studying Battlefield Fortifications and Military Strategy. He'd been destined for the Cybertron Security Forces. He was the youngest of the group and had 'died' in a battle simulation gone wrong.

Jazz moved on watching as the future gestalt adjusted to their new lives. He sped through Perceptor's memory as the files contained orns and orns of training as Perceptor learned how to be a recon scout and general warrior as well as finishing off his Organic Studies specialty with a scientist mentor of the CCC. The other team members also finished off their own specialties under CCC mentors in the base as well as picking up new skills as warriors.

Foist, much to his own annoyance was forced to finish out his specialties as well. He'd complained on more than one occasion to Perceptor and the rest of the team that if he'd wanted to actually be a specialist in any of his chosen fields of study, he'd have finished them off long ago and garnered the honors that came with being amongst the top 10 of your class.

Then, quite by chance, the team discovered something Foist, no matter how much he practiced, could not achieve high marks in. Foist was a horrible shot when it came to weaponry. He finally managed, after many attempts, to qualify with each of the basic weapons as was required of each team member, but he'd met the exact minimum mark required to do so. And yet, while his shooting left much to be desired, he excelled at the maintenance part of weapons. He could strip down, clean and reassemble any of the basic weapons as well as any of the more advanced and complicated grade weaponry faster and more efficiently than Perceptor, Gazer or Cavalier -who would actually carry and use the advanced weapons. He was also more proficient in the diagnosing of problems and repair of any and all weapons, even beating out the CCC's own Senior Weapons Supervisor in that skill. Thus it was to Foist that the job of Weapon's Supervisor for the team fell.

In between all the training and studying Perceptor along with the rest of the team underwent surgery as their frames were modified and re-modified for the gestalt process. And in the case of Perceptor and Gazer, new alt modes as well.

Over the time, the team learned to move as one and think as one, helped along by the surgical spark bonding process they'd also been subjected to. And that has indeed been a surprise; and another freedom lost was the general thought at the time.

/\/\/\

Perceptor looked at Slider, then the rest of the team. A few paces off, the labbies were set up to monitor and record the event. Perceptor's thoughts wandered. Labbies was the term Slider had coined in reference for the CCC's scientists and lab technicians. And since that elitist group had seemed to take 

offense to it, the rest of the team had adopted it as well. It was a small rebellion in the very controlled world the team currently lived in. Perceptor's thoughts moved on as he glanced over to where CCC command observed the goings on. Of course most all of the High Command was present. While no one knew what to expect out of this cycles exercise, no one who was in the know, wanted to miss it either.

Perceptor's frown faded away to a blank expression as he turned his attention to Cavalier as Cavalier watched his team. Over the past meta-cycle, since the last of the surgeries, they had worked and trained even harder. Orns spent laboring through obstacles and challenges that required each team member to give 100 percent. And just as Foist had become the Weapons Supervisor by default, so to speak, Cav became their leader. He might be the youngest of them, but he had had martial training previously. He was a battlefield model from the beginning. He would have been an officer for the Cybertron Security Force. The rest of them were just civilians – well they had been. Thus they had flocked around Cav, as the only one of them to understand all this training they were receiving. And Perceptor thought Cav had excelled in the position with the added responsibilities. He had molded them into a competent team that any commander would be proud to command. And Cav was that commander.

They were all jittery today Perceptor noted with a strange twisted relief. Sure it had been explained to them. In fact, for half of them, and Perceptor included himself with that half, it had been over explained. For Foist, Tonic and Cavalier, there was no such thing as to much information. Himself, Slider and Gazer would have been happy with less, but again it was deemed necessary that all of them fully understand the Gestalt process. Well as much as anybody new at the moment.

So here the team was, just a breem or two from performing their first merge. A breem or two away from proving this was a worthy endeavor. A breem or two from possibly killing themselves. It was all theoretical at this point Perceptor reminded himself. Granted it was theory with several vorns of study behind it, but still…

Perceptor cycled his air systems. It was suppose to be just like transforming he reminded himself. You just did it. Think too much about it and you wouldn't be able to transform. He'd handled the redesigned alt mode transformation sequence alright. This should be similar he told himself.

Then Coderunner, a senior labbie was summoning them to the center of the field. "Now you remember everything right?"

Nervous nods all around.

"Good, Good. When you're ready then." And he hurried back to the observation post where the scientists, Lab Technicians and the CCC High Command were.

Perceptor cycled his air system again. "Well Cav, shall we get this over with?"

Cavalier nodded, "Yeeeaahh" he slowly drawled. "Now remember that it's just like transforming."

Again nods all around.

Then Cavalier stepped back "Gestalt team, transform and merge."

Perceptor off lined his optics, grimaced and initiated his transformation sequence. Yes it was very similar to transforming, if he could get past the sensation of his body folding, twisting and most surprisingly, expanding in ways never felt before. And then the bonds activated.

_:Oh Primus, where am I?:_

_:What is this?:_

_:Below Foist, remember?:_

_:Where are we?:_

_:What? No.:_

_:Where are you?:_

_:This is amazing.:_

_:Oh yes, this feels wonderful.:_

_:No, it's seductive, dangerous.:_

_:No, wonderful. Relax.:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:Comfortable:_

_:Wholeness.:_

_:This is wrong, we need out. I need out!:_

_:No, relax.:_

_:Yes, relax.:_

_:Easy. Take it easy.:_

_: relax.:_

_:Float.:_

_:Release.:_

_:Let go.:_

_:Wonderful, see how wonderful? Let go of everything.:_

_:No!.:_

_:Yes, just go with the flow.:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:This place is amazing.: _

_:Safe:_

_:Wrong.:_

_:Secure, whole.:_

_:Stop, easy, don't fight this.:_

_:Go with the flow.:_

_:Safe, secure.:_

_:Come in.:_

_:Yes come in, join us.:_

_:please.:_

_:Yes, join me. Join us.:_

_:Join us.:_

_:Join us.:_

_:Join us.:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:Who am I?:_

_:I…am…I…I am…:_

"I. am. Monolith!"

/\/\/\

* * *

**Truth of Barricade, acer-sigma, Elariel** - Thank you so very much for the great reviews on chapter 7. Comments like those are always helpful.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 9  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Jazz, the Monolith Team, Totality Team  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

* * *

You're gonna love this ending **okami-chan** XD (but the next chapter should be up quick.)

* * *

**Part 9**

Jazz freed himself from the memory and paused. The memory of that first merge had actually carried feelings. Not just thoughts and emotions, but feelings as well. Feeling was actually an inadequate description, but he could think of nothing better at the moment. Nothing he had ever done within any hub had ever offered what he had just felt. Feelings were not part of any information transfers within a hub unless you were an actual communications bot designed for communicating to the hub itself like Blaster or Soundwave or they're Cassettes. Nor was it anything like his bond with Prowl, though feeling was most certainly part of that. It had been amazing and unnerving at the same time. Perhaps even dangerous? It certainly had not caused the panic level of earlier when he had shattered the firewalls, but what he had felt was… He wasn't sure, but one of the voices had said seductive. Yes that might be the word. And if it was seductive, it was dangerous. Yes, that was it, what he had felt had been amazingly good, but dangerous. He had felt everything in that memory. He'd wanted to stay, just as those others had.

Jazz shook himself and moved on, though with more caution.

/\/\/\

"You're a thief?" was the question directed at Perceptor by Cavalier.

The team was finally back in the lounge area of their own quarters having completed running the gauntlet of tests and scans that the medical and science teams had put them through. It was the first time they had been alone since the merge a little over a joor ago. And it had been clear through the now greatly increased strength of the bonds that they would talk when alone. Not in front of the labbies. Thus each had had plenty of time to mull over all they had seen in each other's sparks and processors as their memories, and really their entire selves had spilled into each other. For better or for worse, there were no secrets between them anymore. Sorting out whose memories were who's though was not nearly as clear cut as one would think. And some of the revelations were, well, surprising to other members of the team.

Slider moved over a little in Perceptor's direction; for while Cavalier's tone was carefully neutral, the tone coming loud and clear through the fresh, raw bonds from Cavalier was disgust. And if he could feel it, then Perceptor could as well.

"No, I am not a thief. Yes I was created to be a thief and for a good many vorns I did do work in that discipline. But now, I'm a member of your team just as Slider, Gazer, Foist and Tonic are. My background was of no importance before we merged. It shouldn't be an issue now. Primus! A joor ago you saw everything that I am and what do you get hung up on? My first profession? The one I was working very hard to leave behind before the CCC stepped in and changed my path in life? You don't see the others picking out the moments we're all least proud of and bringing them out in the open? I never applied to the martial academy, but I clearly remember being accepted and how elated I was that I got in. I. Remember. The. Feeling! If I have the feelings to your memories, then you have mine. What we all have between us is so much more than a permanent uplink between six bots. No one but us is ever going to truly understand what connects us. So, you want to question me that's fine, but don't set your vocalizer to neutral when we can all feel what you really mean through the slagging bonds. And you know what, you're stuck with all of us whether you like it or not."

Cavalier bristled and everyone felt him struggle through the bonds to calm himself even as Tonic sent calming feelings into the same bonds.

"Slag Cep, you just had to finish that spiffy speech with an antagonistic ending didn't you?" Slider dimmed his optics quickly in exasperation as he deliberately turned his back on Cavalier to grab Perceptor's shoulders and with a tolerant yet frustrated frown, look him in the optics.

Perceptor averted his gaze, as his anger and frustration slid from the bonds while embarrassment and regret took its place. "Sorry" he mumbled.

"Hey, don't tell me, tell him. Then maybe we can all sit down and sort some of this out. Huh?"

Perceptor joined Slider in a glance around the room, no one had taken a seat yet and Gazer, Foist and Tonic were looking decidedly unhappy with the turn of events. Perceptor then looked over to Cavalier where he still stood alone glaring. "Sorry Cav, the last was uncalled for I guess."

A moment of stubbornness before resignation and acceptance flowed through the bonds, "I'm sorry to. Your right, I saw everything and should be able to understand yet I got hung up on the thief part."

Slider smiled as he stepped aside and spun to face the room "Great! Now that that's settled, which one of you removed the door to the Academy Presidents office and replaced it with a perfectly matched wall section complete with the correct paint?

"That would be me." Foist raised his hand sheepishly

/\/\/\

Jazz moved on skimming along the memories, dipping in and out, slowing, speeding, pausing as items caught his interest. He paused as he felt Perceptor shiver and a faint brief attack against his intrusion. A quick counter attack, then he was back to work.

The files became more routine as time passed and the team learned more about their bonds and how Monolith worked. They became a smooth operating team. They launched into space to patrol Cybertron's distant colony planets and explore planets for future colonies and mines. Offering aid when needed and chasing from trade routes freelancing pirates. Long periods spent away from Cybertron with only each other and brief visits on colony worlds.

/\/\/\

Kneeling by Perceptor Tonic yanked his medical field kit from sub-space as he ran scans over the scouts chassis . "Slag it all, his primary coolant pump and energon pump are scrap and the secondary ones are failing. His temps are rising, his spark is fluctuating, not to mention numerous leaks of all sizes in both his energon and coolant lines plus some other structural damage." Tonic looked at Foist, working hard to fight through the panic and fear that was beginning to permeate the bonds as the entire team felt Perceptor's spark start to fluctuate and get weaker. It was scary and painful in a way he had never felt.

"Tonic! Come on buddy, pull it together, get some shielding up. You aren't going to solve this by panicking." Foist's voice was strained when he spoke, himself obviously fighting the fear and panic of the bonds.

The team could feel Perceptor's entire presence within the bonds fading each time his spark dimmed. It was the first time any of them had been damaged so badly that permanent deactivation was a likely possibility and it was rattling them to say the least.

Not a good thing when Tonic knew the rest of the team was still pursuing the last of the pirates through this moons cave system. As distracted as the team currently was, they were much more likely to become targets themselves. And if another one of them took any serious damage, based on the near numbing processor feelings they were all currently experiencing, it would probably be enough to make them all useless by distress. That situation in all likelihood would end with the pirates gaining the upper hand and terminating them all.

Primus, he had to pull it together and fix this. **"Gazer, medical emergency red ball one, I need you now!"**

"**On my way." **

Tonic was relieved Gazer had not hesitated, nor Cav or Slider questioned. He had never used the red ball one code before, which effectively told the entire team that the order or request or both that Tonic had just given was so important in priority that it took precedence over anything else. Remaining team members not responding directly to the code would have to compensate for however the code may have affected them.

"Tonic, what's the plan?"

"I don't have the parts needed to save Cep and the _Seeker_ is too far away to get them here or Cep there in time, so I'm going to take the needed parts from Gazer. He's a modified battle model like Cep, so he has redundant secondary systems to aid in the prevention of quick bleedout."

"Why not Cav? As a created battle model he's got redundant upon redundant parts and systems."

Tonic stared at Foist, then reached out and slapped the others helm and glared. "Now who needs to Focus? I know it's tough, but you have got to try to function here! Between Cav and Gazer, who's the warrior better qualified to continue pursuit?"

Foist failed to answer the question, choosing to state the more urgent. "Tonic, I can feel us losing him."

"I know." Tonic shook his head and turned to Perceptor removing what was left of his chest armor.

**"Gazer, ETA?"**

**"Four kliks, half a breem, probably less."**

**"Less would be better."**

**"Copy that."**

Tonic got the armor off and dug in clamping off more lines and readjusting clamps already placed. Gazer appeared with perfect timing just as Tonic was ready for him.

"Gazer you're donating some parts, get your aft on the other side of me, lay down here," and he pointed to the spot that would keep him between the two warriors while he worked. "Foist get his chest plate off, now!"

As Gazer moved to comply with the order Tonic turned back to Perceptor, looking everything over again. :Come on Cep, your stronger than this:

Turning to Gazer lying on the ground, he explained what he was going to do as he began the actual process. "I'm going to use your secondary pumps and place them in Cep in hopes that it they do the job for his slagged chassis. You need to lay here and not move, because I am only clamping off your lines before I cut them, once Foist and I get Cep set with your pumps, Foist will seal your lines so you can move. Do you understand? If you jar the clamps, you yourself might bleed out. So stay put."

Then gratefully Tonics world condensed to only what he was doing, the panic, fear, pain and despair of the team and the bonds shielded and shoved to the background and time was lost to him as he clamped then cut the lines to Gazer's secondary coolant pump, lifting it out as collant spilled over his hands and into Gazer's chassis. Ignoring the spillage he immediately spun around to Perceptor, setting the pump right next to the faulty one he cut the now failed pump out and placed the good one in dimly aware that Foist was doing the exact same with the energon pump. His movements were quick, neat and efficient. When he was done he took over from Foist the energon pump then moved to other leaks he saw in coolant and energon lines and began patching those. Satisfied with the field patches he brought himself back to the broader world around him at the same time releasing his sheilding and found the team mind concerned, but no longer at the dangerous panicky level of before. He did not need to scan Perceptor to learn the condition of his spark, he could feel that it was again stable and strong within the bonds. "Well Cep, I sure hope this is good enough work to keep you till we get you to the _Seeker_."

/\/\/\

Jazz shook himself mentally, sure he would not get use to that part of the uplink where the memories weren't Perceptor's, yet were. And this time he knew this oddity was because of the gestalt. After the team had merged for the first time, he found many of Perceptor's memories linked in a way that was in fact difficult to even describe. In some cases a scene could be unfolding and he would be seeing it from multiple perspectives all at the same time. And plenty of times, he found himself in a memory that Perceptor had not even been present for, yet ran conjointly with what Perceptor had been doing at the exact same time. Yet it was very much integrated with Perceptor's own memory of the event.

The realization came that even though he was not in Perceptor's memory specifically; said memory was still Perceptor's own. There was no indication that it was merely a shared or transferred file. It was actually Perceptor's and yet not. And along with it was the knowledge that everything he saw and felt in the strange mechs memory was just as true and honest as if he were still in Perceptor's. Then he'd remember that this was Perceptor. That this was still Perceptor's memory. Or was it? That his first direct uplink experience was with a member of a gestalt was probably not helping.

Vorns passed and it was all very routine with an occasional piece of excitement thrown in for good measure. Jazz marveled at the kaleidoscope that had been Perceptor's life. Planets, moons, asteroid belts, stars comets, a nebula, a black hole. Planets and moons of grey, red, blue, yellow, brown, wet, dry, a combination of the above. Some with life, some without, some just developing, some just dying, some hostile to Cybertronian life, some friendly. The team has seen much, done much and met many mechs in their travels amongst the colonies. Eventually they were freed from the Controller and carried out missions on their own. Over the vorns, the team came to believe in the colonies. Far flung outposts that in many cases took several meta-cycles travel to reach.

They met the six mechs destined to become the second gestalt while on an infrequent visit home. Nearly a meta-cycle later, while in a distant system watching a comet destroy a developing organic world the team received word that the second gestalt had successfully merged with Totality the resulting name. Over the nearly five thousand vorns that followed the teams worked together occasionally and played and relaxed together during the rare times their paths and schedules crossed. Then they were all called back to Cybertron. A third gestalt was ready to be brought on line.

* * *

Thank you to everyone for the great reviews. They are appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 10  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Jazz, the Monolith Team  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

* * *

**Part 10 **

Jazz had thought he had come to understand how Perceptor's memory files were cataloged and categorized, unusual though they seemed, but now as he found numerous flags and links attached to the memory of the request to return he wondered if he had fooled himself; as the memory chain linked to run separately from the main file chain. He felt Perceptor physically struggle to free his arm at the same time Perceptor's defenses rallied for another attempt to get him out. Jazz countered, remembering he had shattered all Perceptor's fire walls, making the mech essentially his to control, and so he took Perceptor's motor control away, forcing the mech to settle at the same time sending his own coding against Perceptor's internal defenses. Shock and surprise came from Perceptor as he was forced by Jazz to settle and Jazz felt resignation swirl through the background song of loss and pain, at the same time the defenses collapsed again, unable to offer a fight without Perceptor guiding now that Jazz had taken over. Still Jazz sped up his search.

/\/\/\

"Message from Command, Cav. We have new orders." Cavalier looked up as Slider handed over a datapad with the exact orders before stepping back and giving the condensed verbalized version.

"We are to discontinue any and all projects, activities and communication we may currently be engaged in and report back to Cybertron." Slider paused before adding as expected his own commentary. "The fools are getting ready to bring a third gestalt online; as if the two they have aren't enough and they apparently want us and Totality's guys around for the momentous event. Like this is something I really want to see." Slider finished his tone full of sour sarcasm.

Cavalier ignored Sliders disrespect since it wasn't aimed at him. While none of the team was above throwing the weight of their unclassified Officer's rank around when it suited them, of the entire team, Slider was the one who even this many vorn in refused to cut the CCC any slack. He may have accepted what had happened and would never give his team up, but that didn't mean he had any intentions of being agreeable to the CCC High Command.

Besides, Cavalier could hardly reprimand his gestalt mate for his less than charitable attitude towards the CCC. While Cav viewed the attitude as immature and glitched, the sarcastic criticism and dry humor had vorns upon vorns ago become Sliders way of dealing with Command when the team was not in base. Who was he kidding? It was Sliders way of dealing when in base as well. Though when they were in base, Slider had additional ways of entertaining himself at the CCC's expense, especially if Cavalier didn't rein in his …enthusiasm. Then as quickly as the thoughts appeared in Cavalier's processor they vanished as he finished the written orders and focused on what needed to be done before the team set course for Cybertron.

He grimaced when he got to Cep and Tonic on his list. He knew Slider would ask about acknowledging the order. Seeing as how the current planet of study was of high interest to Perceptor since he was being indulged with the opportunity to satisfy some of that strange interest of his in Organic life forms, non sentient though they were, and same said study had been pushed aside for nearly a vorn for one reason or another, this might just be the time to bend the rules and delay acknowledgement of the orders thus giving him more time to deal with his scout and to a lesser extent, his medic if needed. As it was his Scout aka his Organics Specialist was not going to be pleased to have this study shoved aside again. Even for a trip home. So anything that might help keep him away from of Cep's and again, to a lesser extent Tonic's lines of fire when they heard the orders would be worth employing.

With plan figured out he looked back to Slider. "Slider, let the others know the orders so they can start making preparations. We'll set course in three cycles if we can get Cep and Tonic rounded up by then."

"Yeah, good luck with that. Those two are not going to be happy with this." Slider's sarcasm interrupted.

Cavalier tossed Slider a glare. "That's why you're telling them. I'll have to deal with them soon enough. Ok? So go ahead and pass the word."

Slider nodded from his position back in the doorway to Cavalier's office. "Will do. Um, should I acknowledge Command that we received the message?"

"Hmm." Cavalier paused to think about how long he wanted to delay that message. "It'll take us nearly a stellar cycle pushing top speed as ordered to get back and if Totality is where I think they are, they have a bit more time than that. No, you can send acknowledgement once we've got Cep and Tonic all packed up."

Slider smirked as he tossed Cavalier a lazy salute before disappearing.

/\/\/\

"I'm telling you Tonic, something is very wrong with this new gestalt their getting ready. Twistline has been hinting at 'issues' and if there really is no problem, why summon both teams back for this? It's not like they don't know what they're doing this time around. Two successful teams would suggest otherwise."

"Foist, if you're so worried, tell Cav. He's going to hear you anyway at the rate you're going if you don't lock some shielding walls in place. Your broadcasting so clearly, I'd hear you if I was back on Cybertron this very moment. I'm surprised the rest of the team hasn't popped in."

"I need to shield? If you can hear me so well, but the rest can't I'm not the only one who needs to strengthen some shields." Was the sarcastic response.

"Yes, well I have an excuse at the moment."

"And I don't?"

"Fine, we both need to reinforce." Tonic finished off exasperated

"So, back to Twistline's correspondence and us and Totality being called home for this event."

"Frag Foist! Talk to Cav!"

"You know how he feels about me playing around with the labbie."

"Yeah, well he ought to be grateful one of us is willing to." Tonic huffed. "Tell him your concerns. Tell him about your theory and the blasted rifle. At most you have until we merge next. Then he's going to know anyway. And I for one would rather not have Monolith off balance when we do. Especially if the next time we merge is because of…" and here Tonic paused to wave his hands in the air "whatever situation we've gotten into." He finished.

/\/\/\

"And here we are fellow bots, home sweet home." Said Gazer as Cybertron appeared in the view screen."

"Is Totality's team in system yet?"

"I'm pulling the logs from the boundary buoy's right now, give me a moment. Doesn't look like it; I'm seeing nothing on the _Explorer_ within the last 2 cycles. Looks like we beat them." Slider finished with a smile and flash of his optics behind his visor.

"Then we've just saved Tonic's high-grade and earned ourselves a batch of Kite's."

"Praise Primus and let's land this thing. It's time to party!"

"You say that every time we come home Slider."

"That's cause it's the truth. And what? You're just going to tell me not to fritz the base systems to badly. I mean what's the fun in coming home if I can't play one way or the other?"

"And, thinking of that, Slider, don't fritz with the base systems to badly this time."

"Yeah, yeah, it's not like they can do anything to me anyways. But for you Cav, I'll behave.

"Yeah Cav, just so long as you get him to a bar quick enough." Perceptor added dryly.

/\/\/\

"You and your team made excellent time getting back. We weren't expecting you for another five cycles at the earliest, based on the departure time listed in your message. We appreciate it."

"Yes, yes, we've heard it all before." Cavalier's responded to the CCC low level junior Officer, who had met them upon the _Seeker's_ landing. "We're heading out for the next couple of joors. I expect to be notified as soon as the _Explorer's_ team arrives. Thank you."

Cavalier turned and stepped over to where the rest of the team waited in their alt modes for him to join them.

"O..Oh wait, I..I don't think they w..want you leaving right now. You just got back and I… Well I was told that as a Deep Space Explore Team you're supposed to report to medical for check-ups! And I'm supposed to make sure you go."

Slider and Foist revved their engines in annoyance as cavalier turned back to the unlucky junior Officer.

"Yes, well we've been doing this for around 6000 vorns now. Which I am sure is a good 5000 vorns more than you've been online. We are well aware of the procedure and we'll get to medical when we're good and ready. No offense, but they know better than to send some junior lackey to greet us if they want us around for any length of time. You are currently looking at a Deep Explore Team who has been away from home for seven meta-cycles and not seen any other Cybertronians but ourselves for nearly three meta-cycles and right now we're good and ready for an energon bar. Now, do not forget to inform me when the _Explorer_ arrives." And Cavalier turned, transformed and took off his team immediately around him.

"You going soft Cav? You were almost nice to junior there."

"Almost? I thought I was nice."

"Too much intimidation cost you the full nice and gets you almost." And thru the bonds he felt the equivalent of a playful tap on the shoulder from Foist even as Slider lightly tapped his rear left panel for real.

/\/\/\

"Well, well, well. Look who finally made it home. Took you mechs long enough." Slider called to the six mechs coming down the _Explorer's_ ramp. "A mech might think you don't want to hand over Kite's high-grade."

"Slider, why don't you go glitch somewhere."

"Spinster, I missed you to."

"Would you two knock it off?"

"Yes please, we need to get to an energon bar." Rockshot added as he shoved passed his teammate to clasp forearms with Cavalier. "Good to see you mechs again."

"Good to see you as well. What kept you? You're more than an orn late. Command's ready to glitch."

"Good let them. We took a side trip to the mining colony CCM23. We caught an emergency message capsule from them half a stellar cycle back." Rockshot frowned.

"Everything ok?"

"Hmpf, yeah. Just a normal routine glitch. Some newbie there panicked over something and launched the thing. We never did get and exact answer on what the panic was about, but then as you know, we rarely do. Then of course we show up and nobody wants to admit it's theirs. You know how it is; they don't want to pay the fine for launching the capsule in error just because a CCC team was actually in range and responded. But by Primus, if it had all been real, and no one showed up, we'd never hear the end of it."

"Come on, lets' get you mechs to the bar."

/\/\/\

Jazz frowned as he came across several holes indicating missing files in the chain. Then a couple near the missing ones were corrupted to the point of unreadable. What little he did get was filled with tension and unease. The damage covered nearly two orns of files beginning just after the Totality teams' arrival home on Cybertron. He wished he could experience more of the situation causing the feelings but as much as he would like to see the complete files he settled for the bits and pieces he could get, and then he finally gave up and moved to the next intact memory within the time period as he registered Perceptor's attempts to pull free.

/\/\/\

Perceptor and the rest of the team stood off to the side of where the technicians were set up to monitor events. Totality's team was set on the other side of the techs. As Perceptor watched, vorns of experience in observation allowed him to see that Totality's team was as nervous as his own team. They had all just finished meeting the mechs of this soon to be third gestalt and though never mentioned outright, he was sure that the Totality team was having feelings similar to those of his own team.

Then the labbies had thought it would help ease any fears and calm the third team down if they could meet the other two gestalt teams prior to the first merge. If it had had any calming effect it was surely felt only amongst the third team and really, Perceptor didn't think any of those bots had needed help calming down. No, they'd seemed pretty secure with themselves. As far as Monolith's team went, their tension regarding this new team had only increased. Perceptor was sure that several of the third team had been envisioning ways to dismantle him while making it as painful as possible.

Now away from those mechs, his team had sunk themselves a fair bit into their own bonds seeking comfort from each other. Not enough to be inattentive of their surroundings, but enough to feel the comfort and security of being wrapped in the presence of their mates.

Perceptor's attention was drawn out to the field where Coderunner was talking with the new team, then he was running back to the labbies and the team was merging for the first time.

Perceptor watched, his team watched, the labbies watched, Command watched, Totality's team watched. The tension within his team increased as the astroseconds became nano-kliks, then a klik. Then the gestalt was formed. Standing, waiting as the mind dissolution took affect for the first time. His own team watching, tense. Were they going to have to fight this gestalt as Foist feared? Would they have to use the rifle as Cavalier hoped they would not?

"I am Volatilus! Came the resounding roar across the field and Perceptor's gaze was yanked toward the gestalt a couple nano-kliks before it began the unmerge. The new and overpowering sensation that was the mind dissolution, no matter how good it felt, preventing a longer first merge. Unlimited merge time had to be worked into as the individuals overcame the swirl of emotions that dissolution first brought.

_:Oh now there's a non worrisome name for you. Do you think they could have chosen anything more volatile than that?:_ the sarcastic comment from Tonic, Perceptor was surprised to note.

_:Unstablus?:_ Slider of course.

_:Unpredictablus?:_ Foist, unsurprisingly.

_:Ficklelus?:_ Cavalier surprisingly enough.

_:Explosiveness?:_ Gazer, even more surprising than Cav joining.

_:Erraticus?:_ Perceptor offered his own contribution.

_:Ha, ha:_ Tonic replied to his teammates.

/\/\/\

And though the team made light of the third gestalt, the undercurrent of worry that Jazz had felt in all accessible memories of this time still carried. In addition, he could feel unease from Perceptor as well. It puzzled him and he could find no real explanation in the intact memories. He moved on. And the further from this third gestalt the memories went, the ease that was routine returned to the team. Jazz enjoyed the ride as life continued over the vorns nine hundred plus vorns. He did take note though that while Perceptor's team interacted as often as possible with Totality's team, there was no interaction with Volatilus after the first hundred vorns or so. In fact, very little information on the third gestalt appeared in the memories. The few memories he found where someone of the team, usually Cavalier, inquired about the third gestalt only resulted in negative or evasive answers. So it was that meta-cycles turned into vorns as the routine exploration and checking in with colonies continued.

* * *

Many thanks to everyone who's reading this story and has it on alert. I hope it continues to be interesting and worth it.

Special thanks to Ksiezniczka, acer-sigma, kirin-saga, Morncreek for the helpful and encouraging reviews.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 11  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Jazz, Perceptor, the Monolith Team,  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

* * *

FYI "Speaking" **"Speaking on a comm" **_:Speaking in a bond:_

**

* * *

**

**Part 11**

/\/\/\

The feelings of puzzlement and a sense of vague denial had been trickling into the teams bonds for the past several breems; slowly like a rocky pebble working its way past armor and wiring till it settled as an annoyance against the base proto form. The emotions had just reached that point of settled annoyance when the bonds exploded in uncontrolled grief, shock, sorrow and denial staggering each team member. It was instantly obvious to each the direct source of the emotions and with the surprise and immense depth of the emotions, the bonds became flooded with unshielded worried and panicked inquiries.

_:Slider!:_

_:Slider! Status?:_

_:Slider what's wrong?:_

_:Are you ok? What has happened? Slider?:_

The disbelief, shock and now strong denial continued to radiate through the bonds from Slider as Perceptor plowed through it all into Slider's spark and processor, quicker than the others in responding; and given it was Slider, less concerned about the perception of privacy the team had learned to give each other over the vorns. Perceptor reeled back and flooded the bonds with his own denial. _:No! Impossible!:_ Which in turn only set the rest of the team off in more of a panic as he failed to broadcast what he'd learned and instead wrapped himself around Slider within the bond both giving and seeking comfort.

_:What!:_

_:What!:  
_

_:Cep? Slider?:_

_:Enough! Calm down! Were acting like we're newly merged!:_ Cavalier waded through the surprising and thankfully atypical onslaught of uncontrolled emotions that had come so unexpectedly. With difficulty he shoved walls in place around the bonds in his own spark and processor and took charge; bringing his own emotions under control then sending that control out to the rest of the team while at the same time arriving on the _Seeker's _bridge. No alerts blared and nothing seemed out of place to give him any hint at the cause of Slider's and now Perceptor's distress. Only Gazer hovering over Slider where the Communications Officer sat at his station.

"Slider, report." Cavalier called as he felt his mental control finally penetrate the uncharacteristically panicked mass mind of the team. At the same time he felt rather than saw the remaining team members arrive on the bridge and make their way to their own stations.

Slider looked up at his leader his expression of disbelief, his tone void of any emotion but puzzlement. "Totality is destroyed."

"Hold it!" Cavalier immediately commanded the rest of the team and reinforced the order through the bonds.

The team settled but shock and disbelief flooded the bonds again, though not at the uncontrolled amateurish and damaging levels of before; Cavalier was pleased to note. Questions flooded as multiple conversations engaged simultaneously in the background through the bonds even as they all focused on the main conversation that continued verbally.

"Slider, you know this how? I need the full report. We need the full report."

Slider seemed to collect himself. Then with a more professional attitude, devoid of any emotion he reported. "We received a communication from Command. They don't really know much, or they're not telling us if they do. Totality apparently answered a distress beacon from a Regular Patrol Team that was assisting Colony CCOE43-B. The colony had initially summoned help to chase off an attack by unknown forces. Totality was only a couple of cycles travel time away from them so responded. Totality reported arriving, but could not locate the Patrol frigate and they received no response to their hails. They chose to land. The last report received from Totality themselves was retrieved from a message packet capsule that they had located survivors and were assisting with defenses since the attack was still underway. The only thing mentioned about the attackers was that no clear images had yet been captured, though they appeared to be Cybertronian, so the assumption was possibly a new pirate group."

"Unlikely." Foist interrupted. "We've haven't seen a group of pirates in a couple hundred vorn."

"Yes, but with CCC funding cut, their fielding less patrol teams. The fact that an RPT was near enough to respond in the first place is actually surprising, let alone that a second team was in response range. It's a good time to look at being a pirate again. Less of us to avoid." Added Perceptor latching onto the side topic as a distraction.

"Hey, if you two are finished, I'd like to know what's going on. We can debate funding and pirates later." Cavalier nodded at Slider to continue as Foist and Perceptor mumbled apologies.

"Um, let's see. Nautical and Greyling were badly damaged and Regraft was unsure if he was going to be able to save them. This is all from the report on account from the CMO of the colony, apparently the entire Regular Patrol Team were also deactivated and the frigate destroyed."

"That would take a fair amount of strength and firepower. And yet the colony survived?" Foist interrupted again.

Slider answered Foist's interruption "In regards to strategic information, all the reports we were given are pretty vague. Greyling was taken out within breems of the team joining the fight, so merging was never really an option. I can tell you that as soon as Totality was killed the colony managed to repel the attackers in what apparently was a last ditch effort that had been designed by Rock and Kite. That successful counter attack is the only reason we have received any reports at all. Actually, the colonies CMO was the highest ranked surviving colonial official, which may explain why his report is so detailed, he's used to writing them, while the action reports are… lacking."

Cavalier attempted to get the conversation back where he wanted it at the moment, knowing there would be plenty of time for speculation and theories later. "Yes, yes, I suspect that junior officers in the local colonial militia probably don't practice report writing very often."

"In point of fact, I don't think any of the militia officers survived." Slider interrupted this time.

"Tactics aren't my concern at this very moment, though I will want to see any information on them. Now you said the CMO submitted a detailed report?" Cavalier prompted.

"It's actually completely detailed if you're interested, but his opening summary page is enough. I'll just read you part of it."

_…the warrior - designation Greyling - permanently off lined due to immense battle damage. This was followed by the immediate deactivation of the warrior – designation Nautical - also badly damaged. Simultaneously the medic, whom was standing next to me, collapsed into a stasis lock. The remaining three team members who at the time had been assisting with the colony defenses were brought in to the triage a short time later also in stasis lock. The reports of their collapse are exact in occurrence as to what I observed with the medic and are further described in detail in my report. _

_At this time I have been unable to determine a medical cause for the collapse of the remaining four team members – designation's __Rockshot, Spinster, Regraft and Kite. __Attempts to bring the mentioned mechs out of stasis lock failed as did energon feeds. By the end of the cycle, all team members with the exception of Regraft had off lined permanently. Regraft remained in an irretrievable stasis lock for two cycles longer than his teammates but in the end his spark also guttered out. Further attempts to bring Regraft out of stasis as well as continued attempts to start successful energon feeds were tried over the course of the cycles. All failed. _

Slider looked back up at his leader. "The labbies own report which command so graciously chose to send, indicates they believe that because our sparks have all been surgically split and bonded for an effect similar to a split twin spark, that the gestalt would suffer the same effects a pair of twins do when one half of the pair is killed."

"Death for the remaining twin, so death to the remaining teammates." Tonic offered. "And I suppose with all the rest of the gestalt bonds breaking at the same time it's like a multiple hit for us. I would theorize that it would be a most unpleasant experience."

/\/\/\

Jazz, paused to consider what he had just witnessed and learned, a bit shaken by the panic and fear that had pervaded the memory. While he had become somewhat used to the emotions of the group mind in Perceptor's memories, merged or unmerged, particularly during intense action; over the long vorns the team had learned to control and use the mass mind in their favor. Not since the first five hundred or thousand vorns had the team been sucked into such a wholly encompassing and detrimental situation in regards to the group mind; though there had been a couple of close calls. Jazz resumed his search.

/\/\/\

"Command's recent update on colonies lost shows an increase this past vorn. CCOE52-A and CCOE52-B as well as CCM01. "

"Hmm. Whoever's doing this is getting greedy. It seems one energy colony a vorn wasn't enough."

"Perhaps, but CCM01 wasn't a colony.

"No, it was a mine. A mine producing weapons grade material. Something's going on here and I don't like it."

/\/\/\

"This has got to stop. It takes more vorns to establish a colony than it does to destroy them."

"True, but when recently has the CCC had funds to establish another colony? Funding's been cut by half at best, three quarters at worst. And that's off of the cut before that."

"Well we're being run ragged with these defensive skirmishes we keep getting in. There's not enough patrol teams either. And just what is Volatilus doing? Because I haven't seen or heard any evidence recently to indicate their playing defense."

"What's it matter whether it's one or two gestalt teams against whomever? The colonies are spread to far apart for successful defense against anything organized with the CCC this under powered. Gestalt's or Regular Patrol, whoever these guys are they have the advantage and I'm sure they're using it to pick and choose when to engage us so as to wear us down."

"Well, give them credit then, they're doing a good job of it."

/\/\/\

"The truth of the matter is this Cavalier. Whether the high command wants to admit it or not, the days of the CCC are over. As secretive as we are, a thousand vorn from now no one will even know the CCC existed. The political atmosphere here on Cybertron is changing. Colonizing no matter the reason was never popular amongst the populace. And that is the current feeling amongst those government mechs and politicians who are in the know. And face it, the way we function, is that we don't exist. What little funding we receive these meta-cycles have got to be used for the good of the many. The further out the colony, they are going to have to learn to rely on themselves in the very near future. Fortunately, most are already self sufficient, being too far out for rapid response help from Cybertron anyway. And that's actually where some of these problems come in. You know as well as I, your team has seen it first hand, 

that these colonies feel they should not have to send any portion of their energy crops back to a home world that offers them very little to nothing in return. The closer colonies and mines are less difficult and easier to control, but the resentment remains."

"Do you even have plans to tell any of them?" questioned Cavalier

"You know better than I they'll be better off if they just slip off the grid. They are not going to miss us so I don't think they're going to object."

"And what about my team and Volatilus?" And Cavalier watched as Reline flinched. Too many mechs it might not have been noticeable as a flinch, but Cavalier had for a very long time considered Reline in the upper echelons of the CCC Command a reliable friend within the CCC. Now, he recognized he'd unintentionally hit on a problem. His optics narrowed as he studied his so called friend; awkward comments and situations over the past few vorns came pounding to the forefront of his processor.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Reline, always confident and secure in his position fidgeted, refusing to look at Cavalier. "Look, Cav, you need to understand our position. We…"

He was cut off as Cavalier reached out grabbing hold of Reline's neck shoving him back against the hallway wall where the two of them had paused. His hand weapon appearing from subspace in his free hand was swung up towards Reline's helm. Cavalier realized he had reached his end.

"I may not be as observant as Perceptor, but I do see things. Every trip back to base the last I don't even know how many vorns has had you guys all jumpy and on edge around us. Almost eager for us to leave in fact. Now the conclusion to be drawn from that reaction is that something happened to change the status quo in regards to us. Then, on top of that, the support we're receiving from you as were out doing our job?" Cavalier rolled his head before quickly focusing back on Reline. "Ooohhhh wait, that's right, we haven't had any." He glared "We're bartering and buying supplies as we go. Nowadays my team doesn't want anything to do with the CCC. Yet I'm supposed to continue to convince them that the CCC is the way to go? My team doesn't exactly consist of stupid mechs, you saw to that with your tinkering. They can see the writing on the wall no matter how much I defend you. We are in possession of a good fast ship. We have a very good working record. And with Sliders skills, we'll have no trouble creating a history. Every circuit I have is screaming that I am not going to like what you tell me, so it would be better to get it over with now…friend." And Cavaliers optics flashed as he placed an almost deadly emphasis on the last word.

Reline twitched, weakly trying to free himself before finally giving in, "If the CCC can be lost in a thousand vorn, the gestalt knowledge can be lost even quicker, since only a mere handful know about it and the truth about your team. The gestalt technology has proven to be too dangerous, a mistake."

Anger flared and he paused to control it. "Dangerous? How are we dangerous? We have given thousands of vorns of service to Cybertron through the CCC and its colonies. Dangerous? What. Does. That. Mean?"

Reline seemed to shrink in on himself, whispering. "It means that we lost control of Volatilus nearly 50 vorn ago. It means we can't just turn you loose and hope you find jobs." Then he collected himself defiantly, glaring back at Cavalier. "You were all just tools anyway!"

"Hoooo, wrong thing to say." And Cavalier tightened his grip on Reline's neck and tapping Relines helm with his gun. Then his processor latched on to the first part of the explanation and his temper cooled dramatically as he fully processed what had been said, only to have it flare again once done. "You lost control of Volatilus?"

"They were all battle models!" Reline said quickly, desperately. "We wanted some 'nasty' in the ranks. It was felt that you and Totality were two peaceful at core, and in a true battle situation, you wouldn't measure up if called upon. The problem was we didn't really understand what we were making when we made them. Please Cav you have…"

"It's Cavalier. My friends call me Cav. And you most certainly are not a friend. You played me all these vorns. I was a fool to hold belief and respect in this Command. My team and I served Cybertron and the CCC for nearly 6000 vorns before you created Volatilus, over 7200 now and Totality gave you almost 6000 total vorns of service yet you didn't think we could do the job? Our track records should have spoken for themselves. First we're not tough enough, now we're too dangerous? The CCC is a complete glitch. We may have been difficult at times, but we have never wavered in our loyalty to Cybertron for nearly the entire slagging time we have been the CCC's and this is how you repay that?"

"Totality proved you were weak. Proved we were right. Proved that when facing a real battle situation your two teams weren't capable. Proved we were justified in making a war model."

"Did you just hear yourself? A war model? What in the pit were you thinking?"

"I've already answered that." Was the imperious reply as Reline drew himself up around Cavalier's grip.

"This is a bunch of slag. I've seen the report. The battle that cost Totality was no different than ones before, or the ones my team has fought since. Skirmishes with pirates and wanna be mercenaries. Someone just got lucky with Totality when they took out Greyling. And in battle, that happens."

As Reline averted his gaze over Cavaliers shoulder once again, the Gestalt Leader glared. Thinking over everything he knew. Then for some reason, something clicked like a switch being thrown as he pieced together the scraps and hints spread out over time and numerous reports, meetings, and conversations, plus what had been revealed in the past few kliks. His voice low, cold and filled with disgust Cavalier challenged the CCC Officer. "You know something more. You afts left something out of the report on Totality's last fight. You might as well tell me because I'm about to give Slider free reign in the base systems and he'll find it anyway.

Reline remained defiantly silent.

"Fine." Cavalier thumbed the setting on his gun and sent a low charge burst into Reline's helm, temporarily off lining him.

_:Slider!:_

_:Yo Cav.:_

_:Find out everything you can on Volatilus, and I mean everything! Then strip everything you can and want from the base system, we're leaving.:_

_:Tonic, Foist, Gazer, Cep, start gathering from supply anything, and I mean anything we need, may need or want. And that includes anything that can be used as capital for barter with colonies. We aren't going to be welcome here much longer, so the quicker you are about it and get the _Seeker_ loaded, the better.:_

Cavalier turned with disgust to the mech at his feet. He needed to tie Reline up and stash him someplace while the team cleared out. He'd been played for a fool and at the moment he was furious.

/\/\/\

Jazz could feel Perceptor twitching more and more, his shattered defenses making more determined yet still unassisted efforts to route him as Jazz countered with his own commands, he wanted to see how this all played out.

/\/\/\

"You all right Cav?"

Cavalier looked up as Tonic offered a cube of energon before taking a seat across from him in the _Seeker's _small lounge area. "What, can't tell?"

"You know I can't, your shielding to well. Shutting us all out."

"Ahhh!" Cavalier began in frustration. "I have spent what? More than seventy two hundred vorns, defending CCC command only to learn that of my entire team, I'm the blind glitch loyal to an entity that deserves no loyalty? An entity who actually had logged plans on how to dispose of us? An entity who can't even tell us that one of their own destroyed our friends? I should have lumped associating and making friends of CCC High Command Officers in the same category as Foist's playing and berth gambols with labbies. But no, I was too blinded by my martial training that taught me to respect the command structure. I lead an extremely specialized team. You'd think after all this time I could see beyond my training in regards to High Command."

"As far as your loyalty to the High Command? I suspect in your deepest core programming and spark from good ol' Vector Sigma is a line or two that emphasizes that respect. You were after all designed for CSF Command. If not for your chassis, processor and sparks predisposition to accept the gestalt process that is what you would have done."

"And my respected High Command's keeping the truth about Totality and Volatilus? You have a defense for that?"

"Cav, none of us, even in our glitchiest visions would have pictured a gestalt setting a trap and destroying another.

"Hmpf, sure, that's not why Foist wanted to build that slagging rifle. Nor is it why I let him."

"You may have Okayed the rifle, but you have always held doubts about that choice. Be glad we have Slider's skills or we'd not have one quarter of the info we've now got."

"Oh trust me, I fully appreciate Slider's skills. That he snagged an entire copy of the CCC mainframe, I am more grateful than I can say. Hmpf, thankfully he already knows and I don't have to." And Cavalier tapped his chest armor where underneath lay his spark. "If not for him we wouldn't know that the CCC had lifted those designs from Foist's memory." Cavalier paused then added dryly, "And, even better, that a copy of those specs along with an actual rifle was given to Volatilus."

"Cav, what may or may not come of the GN Rifle will be. Do you really think that some labbie somewhere wouldn't have figured it out eventually?"

"Oh Tonic… I don't know what to believe in that, only… No you're probably right, the potential weakness of the spark merge point would not have remained secret. And yet… I can't not realize that it stayed that way up till we designed the rifle. That's 6000 vorns that no one figured it out."

"Beating yourself up over that which is out of your control will help none of us. Especially Monolith. The rifle plans were still secure at the time Totality's team was taken out. And it is impossible to say what would have happened had we been told the truth of Totality's destruction. All the actual reports Slider has dug up so far indicate that it was merely a hypothesis at the time. They didn't break with the CCC for another 52 vorns. And even though we're treating it as fact, it's really still just a theory."

"Tonic, whatever may come, I hope it is done quickly."

"We all do. But they've had just over 100 vorns to prepare. This game is going to be played on their terms."

/\/\/\

"We've found them Cav."

"Where?"

"One of the messages I stripped off the system message buoy was for us. Its origin is Colony CCOEM9. The message is for us specifically."

"Specifically?"

"Yeah, here. Listen."

_"CCC Team Monolith, or should we just say Team Monolith now? Yes, we know all about your little disagreement with those fools. We think that you and us need to have a chat now that you've had a few vorns to yourselves. Why don't you all make your way here? If you don't I'm afraid of what might happen to the good little colonists out here. My mechs are eager for some target practice. Oh and you better get a reply to us quickly. Wouldn't want an accident happening due to a…misunderstanding." _

"That was Scythe."

"Yeah, the voice print matches what CCC had on file."

"Gazer, what's the location of CCOEM9?"

"It's up on the starboard screen Cav. They're the furthest out established colony. Pretty small actually. Only one settlement. Never really developed as hoped. Too far out to be practical for exporting. And while we're pretty far out ourselves at the moment, we are luckily in the right direction. Though we are still looking at several orns at top speed, so they may have destroyed the colony by the time we get there. And that's assuming it hasn't already been done. Time is against us."

"Oh it gets better than that Gazer," Slider added before looking at Cavalier. "They obviously have at least one inside source, plus I don't think its coincidence that the message was left specifically on this individual system buoy for us, rather than the colonial wide buoy system. And they can obviously still access CCC equipment the same as us, because this message was buried so as to not be noticed during routine maintenance by the buoy. Primus only knows what other resources they have."

"I know, but it's the best lead we've had in meta-cycles. Send our reply. Tell them we're coming."

/\/\/\

_:Slider, in all the vorns we've been on the team, I never have told you I'm sorry:_

Slider tilted his head to look up at Perceptor from where he lay on the berth._ :Sorry for what?:_

_:For getting you involved in all this. For messing up your life.:_

Confusion filtered between them_ :when did you mess up my life?:_

_:You once told me that the last thing you wanted was to be stuck on some stupid remote outpost guarding a bunch of low life colonists and yet that's what you ended up doing essentially.:_

_:What I have is greater than anything I could have imagined. You know I had no real plans for my life except to frag off my creator. And I'm old enough I can admit I never would have made it in the artistic profession. Slag, as much as I hate to admit it, the CCC probably saved me. And I in no way resent you or the team. How could I? You must know this, we have no secrets amongst us. Besides, we may have guarded low life colonists, but I was never stuck anywhere.: _Slider finished and sent the equivalent of a smile through the bond.

Perceptor in turn sent a mental sigh_ :True, we have had a very mobile life haven't we?:_

_:What's really wrong Cep?:_

_:Do you think we can beat them?:_

_:Them? Volatilus? We don't even know for sure if they're there.:_

_:Slider, that's a bunch of slag and you know it. Now please answer the question.: _

_:Fine. In a fair fight? Without a doubt. But I don't think this is going to be a fair fight. I don't know what their planning, but it won't be fair.:_

_:No, I don't think it will be either.:_

/\/\/\

"Well there it is, colony CCOEM9. What are your orders Cav?"

"Establish orbit, get a message capsule ready to send back to the CCC just in case and put in the call."

/\/\/\

"The message buoy is away with the packet, but I don't know if it escaped undamaged!"

"Let's hope so, it's our only chance that anyone will ever know what happened to us!"

"Dorsal and aft shields are at 18 percent and weakening, power transfer protocols not responding!"

"Rotate us on the center axis and get those ventral shields in play."

"Frag it, we just lost stabilizers, all controls have gone sluggish, correction there gone and A-Grav is at fifty percent, not that that's going to matter momentarily, were entering the atmosphere! And we need our ventral shielding for that. We're landing whether we want to or not! Foist, I need power to the surviving engine and I need some helm controls or we're going to be cooking here in a moment!"

"I'm re-routing helm to my controls, get you're aft over here!"

"Where are they Cep?"

"I have nothing! Sensors and scanners and exterior cameras are all down!"

"Foist!"

"Sorry Cav, either I give Gaze the power to keep us from becoming a flaming meteorite or I give Cep some eyes to locate the fraggers! And based on the continued pounding from their laser batteries against our hull and shields, I think we can guess where they are!"

/\/\/\

"Gazer, you got us down and we're all functioning and on line so, it was a good landing, but you've done better."

"Yeah Gaze, I think the _Seeker_ has flown its last flight."

"Alright enough. Cep, I need you out. Go get us some info."

"Right, Gazer or Slider with me?"

"Not yet. For now, just figure out our situation in regards to terrain. After that, I'll send you and Slider in, if they haven't come to pay us a visit by then."

/\/\/\

"There're ours Cavalier. This entire colony. They want nothing to do with the CCC or Cybertron."

The two gestalt teams stood spread out behind their leaders, who stood paces apart on the wide plains before the colony where it lay nestled against the mountains. Beyond Volatilus' team though, a number of mechs from the small local militia had arrayed themselves.

"Well that's just fine Scythe, we want nothing to do with the CCC either and the CCC doesn't care about this colony anymore."

"Then why won't you and your team join us? You have no place to go, we've taken out your ship."

"Join you? You're the very thing we've spent the last seventy-two hundred vorns fighting."

"Cavalier, my team, we're all warriors. Battle models. You can't beat us. We can destroy you just like Totality, or you can join us. You might find this hard to believe, but I'd much rather have you with us."

"Totality is why we're here."

"Totality was weak."

"You were lucky."

"It wasn't luck. It was planning. Just like the events leading up to today." And Scythe waved his hand towards one of his team, and Cavalier absently noted that it was Mace who stepped forward, a familiar looking weapon appearing in hand.

_:Don't. We already knew they possessed the knowledge:_

"Your team can't win Cavalier. Are you willing to consign them to deactivation?"

"I see no advantage to you yet. We may be at risk if we form Monolith, but you're at risk if you form Volatilus. And if it's a gestalt fight you really want, your colony and supporters are very likely to take some damage.

"Collateral damage is the risk you take when gestalts fight Cav."

/\/\/\

Jazz was confused now, this 'rifle' had been mentioned plenty of times and yet he had found no information on it within any memory. And how could such a small weapon be a threat to a gestalt? He was unclear about that as well. Yet unease and worry and a bit of fear were the definite emotions present whenever it was mentioned. And those emotions felt amplified as Preceptors team faced the other gestalt.

/\/\/\

"Ah slag Cav, they're going for their own people."

And it was true, the team was taking the moment to rest on and behind a formation of hills while the Volatilus team had fallen back, the few mechs from the local militia who had backed Scythe and his team and were still on their feet had dropped back as well. Now though, Volatilus had formed and was turning 

his attention not on them, but on the primary colony. And sure enough, the com channels quickly filled with multiple pleas for assistance and offering pretty much everything they had in an attempt to entice the Monolith team to help.

"They chose they're side Cep, I say let them reap the rewards."

"Slider, you know we can't do that."

Slider turned on Gazer and stared. "Why the frag not? We aren't part of the CCC anymore. They aren't part of the CCC anymore. For all we know this is some kind of trap. In fact, I'm sure it's a trap to force our merging. We already know they don't play fair, or else we'd still have a ship and not be trapped here!"

"He's right Slider." And Slider whipped around to face Cavalier in frustration as his leader continued. "Even if the colonists chose Volatilus, I can't believe they knew that this fate awaited them. We have to come to their defense."

"The only way to do that is to merge! Two gestalts going at it on their front door is just as likely to destroy that colony. Only a whole lot quicker than if we just let Volatilus do it. And who's going to cover us when we do merge? In fact, I'm sure they have some glitch just waiting for us to do that. Then bam! Bye bye Monolith."

"Yes, and I'm sure that's why they're going after the colony. It's an attempt to draw us out. Being unable to beat us in hand to hand even with the numbers in their favor, they're calling in the big guns now, so to speak. However, if Monolith closes with Volatilus quick enough, they may not have a chance to get a clear shot."

"Ah Frag." And Slider capitulated, his tone, his body, his presence in the bond were clear. He knew in his spark it was the correct thing to do, but it didn't mean he had to like it. The team would go to the defense of the colonists.

"Fine. Now Slider, you need to activate that program of yours. We know they're getting ready to take us out."

Resigned to what was coming Slider answered Cavalier. "You know The Reckoning may fail. Probably will fail actually. It's not exactly something I could test before hand. And I don't think any programming I can do can alter the consequences of what we are."

"Slider, you've never failed, I'm sure this will work as you planned it to. Who is it?"

"I chose who I believe has the best chance of pulling it off. It's not me, but I won't say who I chose either. I'm one hundred percent positive it's going to be excruciatingly painful physically, and knowing the bonds; painful there as well. If you know before hand, you might be able to intentionally or unintentionally fight off the program, and it needs to be well integrated and working by the time the survivor realizes it. I…I'm actually deleting right now who I chose from my files. Even I won't know, so the merge will affect nothing. I just pray to Primus I chose well and I'm sorry, truly sorry."

"It's been and honor and a privilege to have been your gestalt mate. Now, merge and form Monolith."

/\/\/\

Nothing was working, optics, audios, HUD, vocalizer, motor function, stabilizing gyros were all off and he was falling, he was spinning, yet he felt ground underneath him, he really didn't know what he was doing actually. He struggled through the disorientation to remember. Monolith, they had merged and Monolith had been fighting Volatilus. Yes that was it. Perceptor struggled some more, frantic to overcome the disorientation…And then his world shattered.

His spark, the bonds, databases everything that he was gone in countless pieces. He was screaming in an agony that was absolute, flailing scrambling in confusion for his other parts. Offline, offline, he wanted offline; this much input should have overloaded him by now and sent him into stasis. He couldn't take it, he attempted to offline his systems to seek peace, to escape and found the commands disabled, something else was taking over. Then he realized he was The Reckoning. He was the one Slider had chosen. He was the instrument of Monolith's revenge and while he wouldn't have thought he could scream anymore physically, or within his CPU, or within his spark or the bonds, he found an anger equal to the pain as Slider's program entangled to deeply in his systems denied him oblivion and began to pull some parts of him back together. He thrashed physically and mentally in denial before painful acceptance came. He was Monolith's final ultimate weapon, and he had a job to do.

/\/\/\

Jazz was screaming. In the physical world, in his processor, in his spark, in his bond. Pain as he'd never felt ripped through his very being. And suddenly, amidst it all his own systems were being attacked forcing him to retreat from Perceptor. And when in pain he failed to retreat quick enough, Perceptor increased pace and level of the attack casting Jazz out of his systems.

Jazz staggered, falling from the chair to his knees as he was flung from the memories and smashed forcefully back into his own processor. His body shaking as he and Perceptor both crashed to the floor.

Jazz was disoriented. He was falling and floating at the same time, both mentally and physically. Then Jazz was looking up through hazy blurred and dim optics into a worried and panicked face. Who the face belonged to he could not register. The bot was speaking, saying something but Jazz couldn't hear anything over the screaming in his processor and the buzzing, hissing static in his audios. He shook his head and tried to speak. Nothing. Another shake of his head jarred everything into pain once again and then he knew no more.

* * *

**Some notes:**

So, I have a whole page of working notes for this AU up in my journal at LJ. If anyone is interested in taking a peak at them, the address is listed in my profile. Once in the journal, scroll down to the August 7, 2008 entry. Mostly you can see how I have envisioned the time frame of all of this since I have pretty much rounded numbers throughout the story. I think that all the potential spoilers listed in the notes are revealed by the end of this chapter 11. But be warned. I may eventually put the notes up here when this story ends also, but for now, that's where they are.

**Thank you to all of you who have left the wonderful reviews. I do hope this continues to please.**


	12. Chapter 12

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 12  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Prowl, Red Alert, Trailbreaker, Ratchet, First Aid, Beachcomber, Wheeljack, Jazz, Perceptor, Optimus Prime  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith AU  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

* * *

Sorry the updates slowed, but fall is beginning to arrive here in the high country in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Real Life has been busy.

Thank you to **kirin-saga****, ****acer-sigma****, ****Ksiezniczka****, ****D. Mischief** for the kind and helpful comments on Chapter 11.

Thank you to everyone who is reading and finding this interesting enough to place it on alert. Again, sorry the writing has slowed.

* * *

FYI - **"Talking on/over a com channel"**

**Part 12**

**+-+-+-**

Prowl was distracted. He was so distracted that he didn't even realize he was distracted. And had it not been for the fact that he was in the Tactical Teams planning office, with Trailbreaker and Red Alert for the purpose of reviewing modifications to the Arks Security, it was most likely that none would have realized the unusual state of the Second in Command. Prowl, though unaware of it himself had been distracted since Jazz had apparently unintentionally broadcast the barrage of negative feelings across their bond, then with little explanation had firmly shut him out.

Had Jazz been on a mission, Prowl would have thought little about how firmly Jazz had shut him out; nor would he have puzzled over the brief yet nearly overwhelming sensations from the bond. However, he knew the Saboteur was in base, and as the bond very rarely interfered with either of their jobs, especially when in base it had caught and held the tacticians attention as he reviewed the experience. On top of that, the steady failure of Jazz's extremely firm shielding along with the steady increase of feelings and quick brief flashes of images over the last 15.8 minutes and Prowl's interest and attention was well and truly caught.

Trailbreaker and Red Alert had picked up on Prowl's lack of attention to the security discussion rather quickly. It being rather easy to notice. And they had done it far quicker than the time it had taken Prowl to stop answering questions and give up all pretenses that he was interested in the topic of discussion.

"Prowl, are you ok?" Trailbreaker asked for the fourth time in as many minutes as he cast a worried frown at Red Alert. Still he received no answer.

"Prowl, this is Red Alert, please answer us or I will summon Ratchet."

This veiled threat by some miracle registered with Prowl, if somewhat vaguely as the tacticians response showed. "I am getting the strangest… feelings… and… images… over my bond with Jazz." Prowl answered distractedly. "They are confusing and unfamiliar, yet interesting at the same time. It is … unusual."

"Okay, Prowl, I'm thinking we might need to put this meeting off and you go figure out what Jazz is up to. Huh?"

But Prowl was already lost once again in the bond.

Red Alert sent an inquiry to Teletran seeking Jazz's location. "Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't do this to me. I just got released." He muttered to himself.

Trailbreaker looked at Red Alert in confusion. "What?"

"Huh? Oh, I just had Teletran locate Jazz. He's in Perceptor's lab. That's what sent me to Ratchet last night. And I just got released in time for this meeting. I really don't want to do this again."

"Oookaay, I still don't understand." Trailbreaker replied softly.

"Never mind, all it proves is that Jazz is really out to get us. Crashing my processor wasn't enough this time, now he's working on Prowl. And Perceptor is helping him. Perceptor has been assisting the Decepticons since the day we found him and he has finally recruited Jazz. Now, they must be setting us up for Megatron's next plan. It's a plot. If he takes out enough of us in the Senior Command the Decepticons can just…"

"Whoooaaa, slow down Red. There's no plot, and hurting Prowl," Trailbreaker nodded at the distracted Tactician before looking back to the Security Director "is the last thing Jazz would do."

Red Alert looked at Trailbreaker. His optics a little too bright.

"And me?"

"Red, Jazz is an Autobot Officer, just like you. Pit, he's Senior Command just like you. Jazz is not out to get you."

"And Perceptor? The things he can do when …"

Trailbreaker sighed by cycling his cooling vents as he interrupted, "Red, Perceptor is also an Officer. Look, put a little of that above average intelligence of yours to work. All we have to do is page Jazz. And if he's in Perceptor's lab, I'm sure a page to Perceptor would work also." Trailbreaker looked again at the tactician and waved a hand in front of Prowl's dimmed down optics. Then with a frown at the lack of response added to Red Alert "And we might want to do that pretty quick."

Red Alert forced his processor to the task of paging the two officers and frowned when he received no response. Clamping down on his processor he tried again, this time on a general in base Autobot frequency rather than a private encrypted one.

"Trailbreaker, I'm not getting a response from either of them."

"I heard you on the Base 2, try an Officers channel or a private line if they're not answering the general."

"I tried a private line first and think about it, even if they chose to ignore me on a private encryption, they should have answered on the Base 2 frequency. It's required of everyone to answer all calls on that line."

"I'm well aware of…" and Trailbreaker paused as Prowl's door wings started to twitch and shivers ran through his entire frame. He looked at Red Alert. "Call Ratchet, quick!"

Then before a line could be opened to send the call, Prowl was screaming. Red Alert and Trailbreaker pushed to their feet, but neither moved. Surprised and unsure about what to do, they watched as Prowl continued to scream flinging himself away from the table and out of the chair only to go crashing to the floor.

"**Red Alert to Medical, we have an emergency in the Tactical office. Something is seriously wrong with Prowl."**

At the same time Red Alert began his call, Trailbreaker began shoving table and chairs out of the way of the now flailing tactician, but otherwise stayed clear. Then, quicker than it all began, Prowl ceased his struggles as he off lined into a stasis lock.

"**Medical to Red Alert what's going on?" **

"**Ratchet, Prowl just fell into stasis lock."**

"**You're sure his processor didn't just freeze up." **Was the unexcited reply response.

"**With Prowl I know the difference. He's not just off line, he's in stasis. Besides he was screaming incoherently before he off lined." **

Trailbreaker broke in on the medical line then. **"Ratchet I** **haven't actually heard screaming like this since Cybertron's battlefields… early in the war." **Trailbreaker by mere phrasing and voice inflection had left the implication of a bond problem un-vocalized, yet had clearly stated it for all listening in on the medical frequency.** I don't think this is nearly as simple as a processor freeze."**

"**That is not exactly simple either when it comes to Prowl Trailbreaker, but we're already on our way."**

The medical frequency was a common frequency open to all for monitoring and use at anytime; still it was a surprise to everyone currently on it when Beachcomber broke in. **"Ratchet, medical emergency in the Science Lab. I have Perceptor and Jazz, and they both appear to be in stasis lock."**

"**Slag it all Primus above and below." **Ratchet stopped his hurried path through the Ark, forcing First Aid to stop as well. "I have no idea what is going on, but I don't think this is coincidence. Aid, I want you to go on to the Tactical Office. Evaluate the situation, and if everything is clear have Red Alert or Trailbreaker help you get Prowl to the Med Bay. I'll head to the Science Lab and bring Jazz and Perceptor once I evaluate them. Now go." And Ratchet shoved First Aid off while he backtracked to another hallway.

"**Red Alert, Trailbreaker, I'm sending First Aid to you, Beachcomber, I'm on my way to your location." **Ratchet then switched to a private frequency, **"Wheeljack, I may need you in Perceptor's Lab."**

**+-+-+-**

"**Prime, Prowl's out of stasis and his systems are rebooting right now. He should be online shortly."**

"**And what about Jazz and Perceptor?"**

Ratchet frowned as he glanced over at Wheeljack where he stood over next to Perceptor before returning his attention to the com. "**I've freed both of them from the stasis lock, but neither are showing signs of on-lining yet."**

"**Very well. I'll be there within the hour. Prowl is not to leave until I get there."**

"**Understood."**

"Not like he's going to want to leave till he knows Jazz's situation anyway." Wheeljack offered.

Ratchet's optics dimmed momentarily. "You listened in?"

"Hmpf, you weren't encrypted. Laserbeak could have listened in from his favorite perch outside. So, any ideas why these two here," and Wheeljack pointed at Jazz and Perceptor "would attempt and uplink? That's pretty archaic stuff."

"Attempt? I think it's pretty obvious they succeeded." Ratchet replied dryly. Then with a cycling of air continued. "At least to some extent. Perceptor's firewalls and processor are a mess, and Jazz's systems, while not breached got a good jolt. Jazz's condition at least explains Prowl's somewhat. But no, I have no idea why Jazz would want to do this or why Perceptor would agree to it."

Wheeljack didn't answer right away and Ratchet could tell he was thinking something over by the slight flickering of his optics. "Well you know, maybe Perceptor has uplink software. I mean, he is initially from a time well before the establishment of the hubs, both ground and orbital. Prime and Ironhide both have uplink software and refuse to get rid of it. And they're not medical. If Perceptor has it as well it could explain why Perceptor would feel safe allowing it."

"Truth is Jack, we still don't know he allowed it. The mess his firewalls and systems are right not, I find it hard to believe it was voluntary. He's going to be a mess for quite some time, and the resulting processor ache is going to be monstrous."

"Okay Ratch, and what reason would Jazz have for jacking a fellow Autobot. Especially Percy here?"

"I already sai…" and Ratchet trailed off. Now that his immediate attention was not on releasing the bots from a stasis lock, the events of the last week presented themselves front and center. "Ah Slag." he finished with a sigh.

"Ratchet? What is it."

Ratchet didn't respond for the moment as he worked things through in his head, Then he exploded. "The fragger! Crashing Red Alert wasn't enough! Oh no. He just wouldn't be satisfied! The little pit spawn! Slagging Special Op's agent is as bad as Red Alert seeing a conspiracy where there isn't one." Ratchet spun and sent a laser scalpel he'd subspaced flying across the med bay where it stuck perfectly in the target board hung on the wall specifically for that purpose. First Aid and Swoop working near the board didn't even flinch at the impact.

"Whoa Ratch!"

Ratchet spun back to face Wheeljack. "Archaic! What do we know about Perceptor's life before we found him?"

"Uh… He was a scientist on a Deep Space Explore Team." Wheeljack replied slightly confused as to where Ratchet was headed. "He claimed a specialty in Organic Studies plus partial knowledge in various additional sciences concomitant to Cybertronian physiology as well as being a partially-trained medical technician. When he chose to stay we worked him right in to the med bay rotation."

"Right, we were to grateful to have another medical trained bot. We never questioned in depth how or where he trained or learned his skills. He has scientific specialties in metallurgy, molecular chemistry, electrical engineering plus knowledge of just about every other common area of science you want to name. We didn't even learn he was a scientist until that incident with Quickmix and Beachcomber. Pit, how did we miss his being a scientist? Yet we did. It took him verbally beating Quickmix to slag in Mix's own area of expertise."

Wheeljack chuckled at his memory of the event. "I will never forget Perceptor doing that. It was so spark warming to see that know-it-all forced to shut up and retreat by… What did he use to call Perceptor? Oh yes, a second rate medical drone. Yes and I think Beachcomber, though as surprised as the rest of us was certainly grateful for the save."

Ratchet smiled at the memory. "Hmm. Yes, however, what I'm trying to get to, in a round-about-way is that even after all this time we don't know much about Perceptor's past. We don't even know why he was in indefinite supportive stasis."

According to him, he doesn't even know why. So if he doesn't know, how can we?"

"Jack, somebody obviously felt he had value."

"Ratchet! We think he has value. His capacity for data storage is second only to Primes. Come on, he's one of the most brilliant minds Cybertron has to offer."

"Yes, yes. But think back on that machine. The time period it was supposedly from. That technology had to be top line sophisticated for its time. I mean were talking what?" And here Ratchet paused as he headed over for a computer terminal and called up Perceptor's record. "If the date he gave us is correct, forty eight hundred vorns give or take prior to the start of the war plus another twenty four, twenty five thousand vorns into the war before he was found?"

"Okay, so he was locked in supportive stasis for twenty eight thousand vorns. I cannot see, hear, feel or by any other means figure out where you are going with this Ratch." And Wheeljack offered a shake of his head.

"Ahhhh! I am… I … I don't have a clue where I am going with this either. " And Ratchet glared at Wheeljack in frustration.

To which Wheeljack's response was merely a cock of his head to the side before he chuckled quietly.

Ratchet watched as the engineers vocal indicators flashed, belying the otherwise silent response.

Ratchet subspaced another scalpel, pointing it at the still off lined saboteur. "What this is, is me getting sucked into that blasted fragger's conspiracy theory." Ratchet launched the scalpel at the target board, then continued. "The battle in Wyoming a week ago, Perceptor took on Dirge and won. Well, he was winning right up until he took a concussion blast aimed at myself and Hound. Anyway, his systems were rebooting, so I left him with Jazz while I hauled Hound to the triage point. Apparently when he on-lined, he made a few unusual statements."

"Battlefield reboot quirk?" Wheeljack interrupted, the knowing smile evident in his tone.

"Since I wasn't there I can't say for sure, but it's what I suggested to Jazz when he questioned me. Those comments however apparently got under Jazz's armor. And you know Perceptor's been in one of his 'moods.'So he of course decided to play with Jazz… by pulling a vanishing act on him." Ratchet glared at the off-line scientist. Before looking back at Wheeljack. "Give you two guesses where this is going now, but I'm pretty sure you're only going to need one."

"Hmmm. One special operations agent, correction, one most likely bored special operations agent, a few strange battle reboot comments, and Perceptor in a mood. Just what were the comments anyway?"

"When Perceptor on-lined he acknowledged Jazz by another's designation."

"Okay, don't see a problem with that."

Ratchet smirked. "It gets better. When Jazz questioned who this bot was, Perceptor responded by saying "he's my gestalt mate."

Three things happened at once then. The first was the crash of tools from First Aid and Swoop's direction where the two had been working, proving unsurprisingly that at least one if not both of the students had been listening in on the Officers unhidden conversation. The second was Wheeljack's "Hoooo! Oh wow!" and laughing as he put everything together. The third was Prowl revealing he had come online at some point during the conversation by letting loose with a surprising though quite, litany of cussing directed at his own bond mate proving the usually stoic tactician had also put the whole scenario together and felt his mate was to blame for his situation.

**+-+-+-**

It was just after 8pm local time and in most locations on the Ark, mechs assigned to the eight hour night shift had just taken over from those on the eight hour day shift at various stations. In the Med Bay, 

Ratchet had summoned his two apprentices back for the night shift and dismissed Hoist who had been the scheduled mech for that late hour shift. Prowl was just returning from his forced exit after having refueled as ordered by Ratchet. Jazz had finally on-lined thirty-three minutes ago, eight hours after Prowl and eleven hours after the three of them had stasis locked and Perceptor was showing signs of not being far behind Jazz in returning to the online world. Then Perceptor flew off of the med bay berth, and Prowl suddenly found himself facing the business end of a blaster. Everyone else instantly froze in place as they realized anything they did was likely to be at a cost to Prowl.

Ratchet reacted calmly, showing no outward sign of aggression or fear. Keeping his surprise to himself as he recognized the signs of a mech on-lining in a form of battle mode. Many of Perceptor's systems were up and running, but his processor was lagging, struggling to catch up. He was functioning on some basic core programming. And that made Ratchet briefly rethink his conversation with Wheeljack, the events of the past week and what he specifically knew about Perceptor as he debated how to get out of this situation intact; again.

For while Ratchet had had many a weapon directed at him in his med bay over the vorns and been knocked out more times than he could count by on lining warriors, never would he have expected this from the scientist. This trait, skill or threat depending on how one looked at it typically activated when the on-lining mech had been off-lined in a battle situation. And was usually found in frontline warrior's like the twins or the Dinobots who had some pretty heavy survival protocols in their basic core programming or in neurotic, high-strung, finely tuned mechs like Prowl and Red Alert; and it usually occurred when the med bay was a noisy hive of post battle activity - not quite like now. In Ratchet's processor, confusion momentarily reigned as all variables were wrong.

Unfamiliar though he was with seeing this response in this mech, Ratchet pushed through his confusion and began running calculations in his head for the time span most likely needed before Perceptor's entire processor caught up with the survival programming and found he did not like the results. A glance at Wheeljack showed Ratchet that the Engineer was well aware of the situation in regards to Perceptor's status. An almost unperceivable shake of his head and a brief flicker of uncertainty felt in his spark and he knew Wheeljack did not like the calculation results any better than Ratchet. Wheeljack carefully moved in front of First Aid and Swoop in an attempt to keep the two students out of harm's way.

Ratchet returned his gaze to Perceptor and Prowl. As deadly as this situation had the potential of being, a small part of Ratchet was actually near glee that Prowl was on the receiving end, seeing as how the tactician was responsible for shoving his own weapon in Ratchet face a couple of times himself. And no matter what a bot said, or how apologetic they were, you could never fully appreciate this type of situation unless you were the one facing the gun.

Then to complicate the tense situation, Prime chose that moment to arrive in the Med Bay. As Prime entered, Perceptor lunged, shoving Ratchet off balance, ducking under Prowls wing, coming up behind the tactician, wrapping his right arm around Prowls neck then yanking Prowl back out of the way. By the time Perceptor had finished, he had his back secured to a wall, Prowl held as a body shield by a knife blade now pressed to vital lines and cables in the tacticians neck, and his left arm with gun in hand now pointed at the room in general, yet angled in such a way that Prowl could not use his door wings offensively against him. All things considered it was an impressively secure stance.

Ratchet recognized relief from both himself and Wheeljack that Perceptor had acted defensively, and not offensively. That was always a positive sign. In all his time as a war medic, he'd seen only two medical personnel loose their lives to on-lining warriors. And he was more than grateful that neither case had been in his med bay or he the chief officer on site. And he really did not want to see the dubious personal record be broken by a scientist. One he considered a friend no less and with any potential victim a friend also. Still, he was at a loss. The best he could do in this situation with Perceptor so secure in his position was talk calmly and carefully and hope the processor quickly caught up so that recognition files could be accessed. Given the state of Perceptor's processor, based on the scans run prior to his on-lining, Ratchet could unfortunately see this stalemate lasting a long time. Or ending very quickly and unhappily.

"Perceptor, it's okay. Your safe here. Come on, you know who we are." Ratchet could feel Perceptor casting sensor sweeps as the survival programming attempted to identify friend from foe and the situation in general.

It was Jazz, who surprised everybody by moving more into view. "Cep, ease up buddy. Command is gonna take a pretty dim view of you killing one of their prized tacticians. And killing a labbie, no matter how you feel about them is not gonna earn us any points either. Not to mention I'm sure Cav won't appreciate the repercussions.

Surprised looks were tossed in Jazz's direction. He had modulated his vocalizer to a different tone and pitch. Without a program in place that was something very painful to do and no one could understand why he would have done it. On top of that, with the exception of the not killing part, what he was saying made little sense. But Perceptor responded, his own voice full of hesitation and confusion he swung his gun to point at Jazz. "Slider?"

"Come on Cep, ease out of this." Jazz had taken a couple of careful steps closer. He tossed back the answer when the high security encryption code he'd picked out of Perceptor's memories was cast at him. So far so good. Then Perceptor's optics flashed. And Jazz knew his gamble had failed.

"No." He shook his head "Wrong colors. Bond?" Panic, pain and confusion were in his voice. "No!" his optics flashed again. "Dead, all dead!" he screamed in agony. Perceptor shoved Prowl forward away from him making room to bring his gun up for the spark chamber in his chest.

Jazz already moving forward before Perceptor was done screaming sidestepped Prowl, subspaced his own gun, thumbed the discharge level to non lethal, all while launching himself at Perceptor. He shoved Perceptor's own gun back from its intended mark before it could fire and fired his own gun in its place. His shot, right on target off-lined the Scientist and they both crashed to the floor.

**+-+-+-**


	13. Chapter 13

_Sorry it took so long. But it really isn't abandoned. I know it took awhile, I myself had to do some re-reading for it._

_

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**The Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 13  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Perceptor, Ratchet, Prime, Jazz, Prowl, Wheeljack, Red Alert  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

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As Perceptor began the journey back to awareness he slowly perused through the numerous system alerts he was registering. Dimly he realized that such a slow return to awareness and his lack of anxiousness regarding the alerts must be due to a sedative of some sort in his systems. That thought was enough to tickle his interest into why he would be sedated. He chose to ignore the alerts for the moment, none were survival critical and most were not telling him anything he wasn't already discovering anyway as he looked around. In general just about every system that made him him was in various states of disaster. His firewalls were shattered; his memory banks were a mess with a high majority of the files completely mixed amongst themselves. His processor was a dull ache which he knew from experience would become massive the closer he got to full on lining. So for the moment he was content to hover where he was.

Recalling his interest in discovering why he was sedated he directed his attention to the disarray that was his memory banks, this time with enough concentrated effort and interest to become somewhat concerned that the firewalls protecting them were of a very basic nature and all bearing the medical signature of Ratchet. Ratchet? Had something happened to Tonic? Yes. No. Yes he argued again. He fought to pull the information from his memory. No. Ratchet was the Autobot CMO. Yes! Tonic was the team's medic. If something had happened to him on mission, it should be Tonic's signatures he was reading. So yes, something had happened to Tonic as well as himself. What? What was the mission they had been on? What about the rest of the team? His interest in the questions faded as the sedatives worked on his systems and he let the void claim him once more.

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Ratchet grumbled to himself as he watched Perceptor, the diagnostic machines the Scientist was hooked up to and the energon feed laced with one of the stronger sedatives. The last forty hours had been surprising, frantic and downright unpleasant to say the least. From finding Perceptor, Jazz and Prowl in Stasis lock to Perceptor's waking up in battle survival mode, to his attempt to take his own life, to Ratchet's own inability to stabilize any of Perceptor's systems-spark included- for more than a few minutes at a time, to Jazz's revelations regarding Perceptor and the entire situation. Yes unpleasant was putting it mildly indeed. Yet finally, as the evening of the second day turned to night Perceptor's systems and spark seemed stable outside of a stasis lock. Well… Red Alert and Sideswipe's program seemed to be holding the rogue program in Perceptor together; and consequently, Perceptor's spark as well, thus allowing Ratchet to keep Perceptor merely off line rather than in stasis. Ratchet's chronometer beeped alerting him to the fact that he was due to meet with the other Senior Officers with an update. He adjusted the drug laced feed line before nodding to Hoist who was on shift in the med bay. "You know what to do." And with that he headed out the doors to the meeting.

Ratchet paused in the hall before entering the Officers Mess. Mostly to collect himself. The Officers Mess was much smaller than the general rec room that served as the catch all for all off duty activities, and was minimally used since the lines between the officers and the general ranks had become blurred 4 million years ago with the formation of the unit Prime wanted to crew the Ark. Prime had loaded his unit heavily with officers. It was almost a one to one ratio of officers to non-officers in fact. Now, the Officers Mess was where the Senior Officers more typically gathered for non-tactical discussions. Like for this update on Perceptor he had been asked for. By gathering here it forced the work-a-holic mechs like himself, Prowl and Red Alert, and to a lesser extent Wheeljack and Perceptor to vacate their respective domains for some refueling and semi downtime. He could only grumble so much about it; he'd been the one to suggest the idea several years ago when they had awoken on Earth.

Ratchet entered, glancing at who was already arrived and taking note of what everyone was drinking as he headed past the energon dispenser to behind the "bar" area. There he kneeled and slid his hand over an unmarked panel in the floor, manipulating his energy signature as he did so. The panel moved aside and Ratchet reached into the revealed space and retrieved a cube of the sweet high grade stashed there. A flick of his hand as he stood and the panel closed, leaving no trace that it existed.

Prowl and Jazz were already seated on a couch and Prime had taken a chair. Wheeljack was seated on another couch and Ratchet sat down next to him then looked at Prime. "Ironhide or Red Alert coming?"

"Ironhide is still on long patrol and Red Alert is currently glued to the Med Bay security monitors."

"And no matter what I tell him about Perceptor not being a security risk to the Ark, he's not hearing it." Jazz added

"Jazz, he came very close to taking Prowl's life. I would think you would be less cavalier about the risk our Second faced, especially as he is your bondmate." Prime reproved. A note of lingering annoyance in his voice.

"Exactly. Prowl knows why I say he's no risk, as I told you 'n inquiry, I've been in Perceptor's processor. But now I've also had time to personally share the experience with Prowl. It's a much better method than having' to stand before you and verbally explain my actions 'n inquiry."

Prime made to respond, but Ratchet smoothly inserted his own defense. He knew Jazz had been thru the ringer already, and didn't really want any remains of that coming out here. The situation after all was what it was. They would just have to wait till Perceptor on lined and the Scientist himself stood for inquiry. "Jazz is right; at this point in time he's not a risk. Besides Prime, I've already told you that that was a survival protocol running. Unfortunately it was an unexpected one. Had I known Perceptor had once been the ancient equivalent of a frontline warrior, I would have treated him far differently."

Prime directed his gaze and response to Ratchet. "My friend, I think that is exactly where Red Alert is coming from. We apparently don't know anything about Perceptor. That he should be with us for so long…that he should become m…the Senior Science Officer. And yet we really know nothing of his history before us." Prime paused then continued with stronger emphasis on his next words, frustration leaking thru. "He was a member of a gestalt for more than seventy three hundred vorns. That is a good seventy one hundred vorns longer than Devastator and he's the oldest gestalt the Decepticons have."

"Exactly my point!" And all heads turned toward the door where Red Alert stood.

"Hey Red, thought you weren't coming." Jazz smiled easily.

"I'm trusting that Ratchet has Perceptor sedated enough that he won't be waking anytime soon. And I have Inferno on the monitors." Red Alert responded as he retrieved his own cube to drink then moved to join the other Officers.

Ratchet nodded. "Yes he's quite sedated. He's a mess, and needs a chance to fully stabilize and begin internal repairs. Plus I want to make sure you're and Sideswipe's program continues to hold."

"Hmpf. It'll hold. I hate to admit this, but Sideswipe certainly knows his way with slicing programs. For Perceptor's sake, it's a good thing, because I couldn't have written what Sideswipe did. I only offered some reinforcements." Red Alert responded as he allowed himself to relax into the chair with his cube.

"And that I believe brings us back you Ratchet. How is Perceptor?" Queried Prowl.

Ratchet's optics dimmed slightly as he thought out everything. "He's holding his own. I'm keeping him off line by the use of sedatives. I don't want to send him into stasis again if I don't have to. Nothing will get repaired if I do. His spark seems to be stable, but it is weak. It suffered greatly when that Reckoning program went hot active. Sideswipe's program seems to be working for the time being, and hopefully the Reckoning program will return to its previous state of passive activity. If it does not, or Sideswipe's program fails before it does, then the chances of losing him are one hundred percent. Ratchet paused here and it was evident to all that that admission of the potential guaranteed failure hurt the medic. "There is just no way that we know of to save a member of a gestalt team when one or more of the team is already dead. My sending Perceptor back into stasis while Sideswipe looked at the program and came up with his own counter was merely a temporary measure. It would not have worked for long. Everything we and the Cons know about gestalts says that Perceptor's survival is impossible."

"So there is no way of removing the program from him?" asked Prowl.

"From what myself, Wheeljack and Sideswipe saw, and Jazz has explained; the program was designed to integrate and entwine itself into a bots core programming as well as linking itself to the functioning of the spark. You yourself took a look at it Prowl. It has in essence become a small piece of everything that makes Perceptor Perceptor. The best any of us can tell it is the only thing preventing him from joining his gestalt mates in the matrix."

"Very well continue."

"Fine. As it stands his firewalls are completely shattered and in ruins. I have loaded some basic ones that will offer some protection but he has a lot of work ahead of him rebuilding his own. His were some of the best I've ever seen aside from some Special Ops bots or Prowl's."

Ratchet paused and glanced around as he took a sip of his drink. When no questions or comments were forthcoming he continued. "Not to say that none of the already mentioned stuff is not a high concern, but of particular concern to me is that his memory banks are also a mess. His files are mixed amongst each other and completely out of whatever sequence he kept them in." Again Ratchet paused for a drink.

"You mean they are corrupted?"

"No, I mean they are completely mixed up."

"What will the result of that be?" Prime asked into the break.

Ratchet returned his gaze to Prime. "It means that I have no idea who might wake up."

Jazz leaned forward drawing Ratchet's attention. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I said. I have no idea who might wake up. We might get a bot who thinks he is still working for the …CCC? Is that what you called them? Yes, or we might get the Autobots Senior Science Officer. And since he was a gestalt, and we _really don't_ understand how the whole memory sharing works, we might get his team's medic or engineer or navigator. We might get a combination of any of that. His files are so messed up, out of place and overlapping, if we're very unlucky we might get a Cybertronian thief from the golden age. It's all going to depend on what Perceptor and his processor does with those files."

It was obvious to all present that this was a further distressing development for Jazz. "If we don't get Perceptor. I mean if we don't get the Perceptor we know, what are the chances that his memory banks will correct themselves and we eventually get our Perceptor back?"

"I honestly don't know. Neither myself or Jack have ever actually seen memory banks this messed up before. Corrupted yes. But these aren't corrupted in the way we would normally perceive a corrupted file. Hence our using the term messed up." Ratchet looked around and saw the somewhat confused expressions from his fellows.

"Look, it's like this. Think of Perceptor's memories as multiple chains. Each segment in a chain linked to the one immediately before and immediately after. Each chain, a division point based on Perceptor's own filing system. Now take at random one of those chains and remove a random number of links at a random number of intervals and drop a random number of those into another randomly chosen chain at random intervals. But when you drop them in, don't replace any links from the new chain. Have the new link acts as a doubled link wherever you place it. Now you have two memories competing with each other at the same time. Now do that over and over again with his entire memory."

Ratchet paused and Wheeljack took over to give the medic a rest. "That's actually similar, as best as we non gestalts understand it, to what happens with a gestalt teams memories every time they merge and unmerge. So his processor is actually somewhat prepared for this situation. The problem is that it's not just his teammate's memories that are doing this at the moment. It's his _entire_ set of memories. His waking up and not knowing who we are is a worst case scenario, but still possible."

"How possible Ratchet? Asked Prowl.

Ratchet swung his gaze to the SIC. "If this were one of Smokescreen's pools, I'd bet that he'll wake with some disorganized memories, but near the latter end of his timeline."

Prowl arched an optic ridge at Ratchet.

Ratchet huffed but responded. "I'm not the numbers mech here, but I expect that he'll wake up right where he's supposed to be with only some minor overlap. AS Wheeljack said, because of his gestalt history his processor is already prepared to deal with this situation. I just doubt it's ever sorted his memory banks to this extent. It's why I'm keeping him fully energized even with the sedatives on board, which seems like a contradiction I know, but to a point, the longer I keep him sedated, the more time his processor can work on repairs. It will work out."

Ratchet settled back leaning into Wheeljack as the others digested this information.

Jazz shook his head and Prowl placed a hand on Jazz's shoulder. "No one blames you in this. You have been cleared of malicious wrong doing."

Jazz looked at his bonded. "I know we've already gone over all this. But I blame me." Jazz looked around at the rest of the officers, then the floor. "I acted irresponsibly using the excuse of being responsible. I didn't listen to my own doubts about what I was doing. I may be an expert in cruising thru hubs, but I should never have uplinked with another bot like that. Pit, this wasn't even an uplink, what I did was a jacking. I put myself at risk. I put Prowl at risk. I put Perceptor at risk. I attacked and broke a fellow Autobots firewalls; I unlocked Perceptor's final memories of his gestalt team, which were obviously blocked away for a purpose. Because of that his team's final program went active and attempted to fulfill the one final task it had failed to do ages ago by releasing Perceptor from its hold. By putting myself at risk like this…. And this wasn't an op's mission I was on. Perceptor is not to blame in this. I saw his reasoning for letting me uplink. He was hoping to contain a potentially explosive situation. And ya know what? After having been given access like that to everything he is and seeing his memories and the reasoning behind his choices, if it hadn't all gone to the pit there at the end, it would never have gone beyond myself."

Prime spoke before Prowl could respond. "Jazz, no matter what you say, you must see that Perceptor is at fault. He has lied to the Autobot faction in general, his unit, friends and myself specifically."

Jazz interrupted. "That's getting close to making this personal Sir."

"No matter the excuses, there is blame here."

A touch by Prowl to Jazz's arm and a lean against their bond stopped Jazz from a counter response and he settled back against Prowl

The other officers settled back in their own thoughts as well, there was little enough to say that had not already been said or dissected before or since Jazz had stood before Prime, Prowl and Red Alert and revealed in detail what he had done.

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Perceptor came once again to vague awareness. This time he was greeted with fewer alerts. He took note again that his firewalls were shattered and in their place ones placed by Ratchet. And again he wondered about Tonic. Then his attention was drawn to a non-descript but very specific alert. His concern about the alert was enough to power his way past the effect of the sedatives and he raced thru his systems for a very specific set of memory. Located away from his main memory, buried deep out of the way, completely unremarkable, unless you knew what was there. And only the rest of the team should know. Even the firewalls for the area, while impressively complex and strong were completely inconspicuous. The first firewall was shattered, showing it had not avoided Jazz's attack. The second, though it had not failed, was no longer useful. The condition of the two firewalls gave Perceptor pause as he reevaluated and boosted his estimate of Jazz a bit higher. Then to his relief he found the final two walls remained hidden and as strong as ever. No evidence that the information protected by these had been accessed, or in any way compromised. With the knowledge that the GN rifle and the weakness of the gestalt merge point was safe, and therefore his team safe, Perceptor allowed the sedatives to once more claim him.

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	14. Chapter 14

_**Last and Alone – Secret**_  
**Title:** Part 14  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Perceptor, Ratchet, Red Alert, Optimus Prime  
**Warnings:** Mech x Mech hinted at/mentioned occasionally

**Universe:** G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC's to my knowledge are solely mine.  
_**Summary:** Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it's a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down.

Okay boys and girls. Loads of ground to cover. Strap in (because some of its bumpy), and hopefully you enjoy the ride.

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Perceptor on lined his optics not to the light grey ceiling of the _Seekers_ small medical room but to an even smaller room with an orange ceiling. A slight turn of his head proved that the walls were also orange. He could not recall a CCC ship of this color. He puzzled thru his memory until the correct identifying information surfaced and he recognized his surroundings as one of the private rooms off of the Arks Med Bay proper. He worked to call up why he would be in the med bay aboard the Ark and finally got what seemed like the correct information. That's right he had allowed Jazz to interface with his systems. And then it had all gone to the Pit in a hand basket. He grumbled to himself in his processor. His chronometer indicated he'd been offline for more than six days. That ought to have Tonic in a snit. He called up his diagnostics which reported he'd been sedated for the majority of that time. Still was in fact. He could feel the sedatives in his system keeping him relaxed. That offered a puzzle. Why would Tonic want him sedated for so long?

As he ran diagnostics and interpreted the reports he noted one that should have had him panicking. Each and every one of his seven system facades was missing. Not just off line, but removed. That he was not instantly panicking or stressing was proof and testament of the strength of the sedative he was on. Still even relaxed he knew that without the facades he and his team were at risk. Perceptor initiated a long unused program, its purpose to override and redirect his internal repair systems to the single task of consuming various drugs used for interrogations quickly and far ahead of whatever schedule his captors expected. It just happened that it was also handy against Tonic's sedatives

Perceptor mentally shook himself. No! He recognized misplaced and overlapping memory. He wasn't captured. These were his teammates. No! These were not his teammates. Could not be his teammates. Where were his teammates? He spent nearly two minutes very long minutes puzzling over the confusion of his teammates. Suddenly, the consumption programs progress clearing his system allowed his processor to organize the final memory files that were out of place and he recognized the uneasy feeling that had been in the background, permeating his entire being for what it was. He was hit suddenly with understanding and the massive pain, despair and constant aching hole of his loss; which up until then had been kept at bay by the very sedatives he had wanted out of his system. Nineteen minutes later his clearing program pinged complete and he sat up as a shiver ran thru his systems, weary from the struggle to erect blocks against his loss so he could function. The blocks were shaky at best and a far cry from what he had had before, but would do for a short time until he could work some more on them. Then he shifted sideways swinging his legs over the side of the berth just in time for Ratchet to walk in.

Surprise crossed Ratchets features, before being masked by his professional expression as he approached the berth. "You're up quicker than I expected."

"I would think that off line for six days would be plenty of time. I didn't hurt anyone did I?" Perceptor asked as he began to search for the truth of what and how much was now revealed and who knew. If the facades were removed, it stood to reason that Ratchet knew. And if he really didn't know, then he had to at the very least suspect. There was no way his spark would scan as whole without at least one of those facades in place. And if Ratchet knew, then Wheeljack knew as well. And considering what had put him in Medical, he really couldn't see First Aid not having learned, which of course meant the entire Defensor team knew. We're they all under patient confidentiality oaths? Had Ratchet known that the entire team needed to swear the oath because of everything they would learn thru their brother? Perceptor didn't know as it had never been of immediate concern for him. Then of course Jazz knew which meant Prowl knew. Jazz and Prowl were Primes Third and Second, so it stood to reason that Prime now knew. Excluding himself, that only left two Senior Officers. And Red Alert probably knew. That was just a given. And Red Alert knowing was sure to cause Perceptor annoyance. And that was putting it mildly. Of course that was assuming he kept his rank and didn't find himself a permanent resident of the brig.

"What do you mean?" asked Ratchet as he began to unhook Perceptor from the status machine.

"My diagnostics are reporting that my Survival Reboot program activated. Did I hurt anyone?"

Ratchet stiffened slightly and to most bots it would have been unnoticeable. But noticing everything was what, at his very core Perceptor specialized in. "No, no one was hurt." Ratchet offered slowly. Then with frustration in his voice and a sharp whack to Perceptor's helm. "And it sure would have been slagging nice if I had known in advance that there was even a chance you carried such programming. Just what the frag were you thinking by not revealing that? You know the dangers those programs pose in a medical bay!"

With his helm and audios ringing Perceptor avoided Ratchets gaze as he offered his carefully modulated to the point of bored, monotone defense. "Civilian Scientists and Medics do not bear such encoding. It's strictly martial. Had I revealed it, I would have had to elucidate why I had it. I believed failing to mention the information was preferable over lying about why I would have it."

"Hmpf, there's a lot of information you failed to _elucidate_ my friend. And I'm not going to lie. It hurts that after serving together for so long you are not comfortable enough to trust Jack and me."

"I understand Ratchet. But hiding the truth of what I am is practically coded into my spark itself. Back in my time, my team and I did not hide the reality of what we were just for the security and advantage of the CCC, though that was a huge part of the reason. We also did it for our own survival"

"What do you mean?" Ratchet asked, curious.

"What has Jazz told you? How much of my story do you know?"

"Jazz stood for Inquiry three days ago. The Command Staff, except for Ironhide since he's still out on that Patrol, know everything."

Perceptor cycled the air in his system in a sigh. "Five pieces of my spark were surgically removed and five pieces from five individuals were then surgically added to mine while each of those individuals received a part of mine. This wasn't just bonding with another mech who's spark resonated with your own nor was this the miracle and curse of a naturally split spark. In my time, this would have been…was considered….unnatural. Sparks to animate a chassis, the very sparks that become Cybertronians were, are a gift granted from Vector Sigma. You accepted whatever form they took, so the split spark of a set of twins was fine. Should you be lucky enough to find a spark in our entire population that resonated with your own, then bonding was the excepted and expected outcome. After all, it is near impossible to deny that connection. Surgically altering a spark or sparks showed at the very least, disrespect for the gift…the miracle, given by Vector Sigma." Perceptor paused before continuing in a somewhat bitter manner. "In my time, the wonderful golden age of Cybertron, even with all the good my team did over the course of our life, we would have been considered a blasphemous abomination by much of the general civilian and even most of the military populace had the full truth about us been known. No matter how great the potential for military use, you would not have been able to change the beliefs of an entire civilization regarding sparks. Particularly one who had enough members still alive even after the first two wars who could remember the horrors of Quintesson rule. Even amongst many of the colonies who were known for their radical ideas we would not likely have found a safe harbor."

Perceptor cycled air through his cooling vents before continuing once again in a more normal tone. "The truth my entire team would have thought that way until it all happened to us." And his tone took on a dreamy quality as he gazed through Ratchet, seeing and remembering something so extreme Ratchet could at best only have a miniscule taste of it thru his own bond. "The gestalt bond is so powerful Ratchet, so amazing, so… it was impossible to view it as wrong if you were a part of it." Another cycling of vents as Perceptor returned from where ever he had briefly been.

Ratchet looked at his friend. How could Perceptor not have found one bot he felt safe trusting in the entire crew? Even Red Alert had found one bot he trusted "You've been with us what, thirty thousand vorns? I would have believed that in that time, myself and Jack would have proven ourselves to you time and time again. But if not Jack and me, how can you say Prime hasn't earned your trust?"

With a smirk and a huff Perceptor answered. "This unit may be like family now but ultimately it is a militant group; and I still have no reason to trust any militant organization. They always turn on you in the end no matter how faithful you are. And I don't think I count as faithful and loyal. I honestly don't know what Prime can do to ever fully earn my trust. Cavalier learned the lesson the hard way. And when he learned it, we all learned it. His guilt and grief was… extensive. I have to admit I keep waiting for the day Prime turns on me. And if not me, then someone else I'm close to. Had it been the Con's who found and woke me, I can't say if I would have stayed with them or not. Yet I am well aware that their ideals and methods are not what my team gave their lives to protect. Still I'm in this war because I didn't have a choice." Perceptor tossed up a hand. "And before you argue that point, I am well aware most Autobots would say the same about themselves, but I literally woke up in it. I off-lined in one Cybertron and on-lined in a completely and distinctly different one. I wasn't witness to the slow drawn out agony. I didn't see it all fall apart around me and I didn't see Optimus Prime _rise from the ashes_ and bring a rag tag bunch of haphazardly scattered fighters together in a cohesive resistance and then an army. But all that aside I have aided the Autobots to the best of my ability."

"To the best of your ability?" And Ratchet's tone and posture indicated disbelief. "Even after the Constructicons and Devastator appeared you didn't mention having the knowledge of gestalts. Devastator was a huge complication whenever he appeared. Not till we got Superion did you really produce information on gestalts. We might have made gestalts a useless exercise if you had offered your knowledge earlier. For surely, having been one for as long as you were you have some ideas regarding potential weaknesses?"

Perceptor responded to Ratchet's tone with a harsh and defensive one of his own. "There is no way I was going to give you Gestalt Tech. I knew what happens when gestalts fight. One gestalt against a non gestalt force is dreadful enough. I have firsthand experience from both sides of the fence on this one. And trust me; I've spent many hours wrestling with my decision to keep quite." Perceptor paused, there was no way he could explain at this time that he'd initially concluded he could not and would not be responsible for the death of another gestalt team. Or he had been reconsidering that very decision and taking steps to possibly reverse it. Then leaving those thoughts he shook his head slowly and continued softly. "You yourself have now had plenty of opportunity to see what happens when gestalts fight. It tends to be pit slagging horrific on anything or anyone in the vicinity. Why would I have wanted to release that horror on this fragile planet? Or any planet for that matter?"

Then before Ratchet could continue the topic Perceptor switched it. Continuing in a neutral tone. "I have detected that new programming has been loaded. Would you be willing to tell me about it before I have to face Prime and the Officers Council that I am sure I have coming?"

Ratchet accepted the topic switch. It wasn't like the answers were going to get any easier for Perceptor with the council. "What do you know about the program in your systems called Reckoning?"

Perceptor couldn't help it. He startled before offering a blunt, dry, "Quite a bit actually."

"Hmm."

When Ratchet did not continue, Perceptor did. "It was written by my gestalt mate Slider and only recently uploaded before the end. Each and every one of my team carried it. I was only the first choice to fulfill the programming dictate if needed. Had I been the team member that got killed, thus activating Reckoning in the others, then someone else, whomever Slider had designated as second in the order would have been made to survive when the rest of us died and gone on to complete the task assigned. At its most basic, the program was designed as a final weapon should Monolith be destroyed with a task left unfinished. A task that the entire team at our very cores felt could not be left unresolved, then the program would activate from its monitoring state and hold the selected team member together for however long it took to complete the task or until they were off lined by adversary and or circumstances. Holding the team member together by creating massive amounts of blocks to keep us in a semi functioning state. It did not impair access to any piece of information needed to carry out the mission but it was a processor numbed state, certainly not a fully cognitive state. It really couldn't be a cognitive state. Our systems, our spark would have just suffered thru what should have been the off lining trauma of being ripped apart and shattered. After the initial moments of rebuilding, the survivor would be more like a drone with only one order. Like being a puppet to the program. As it was, Slider died first so I as the first choice was available for the final task."

"What was your final task?" Ratchet asked carefully, curiously.

"No." Perceptor said firmly shaking his head. "That's my burden and mine alone." A pause and another shake of the head. "No you don't need that information." And Perceptor wondered if Jazz had gotten that information and had just chosen to keep it to himself.

"It will come up in the inquiry."

"I'll face that when it happens. Now please what's the new programming? It does not have your signature and it carries the flavor of a slicer to it."

"Funny you should say that, because it was written by Sideswipe. "Hmpf" and Ratchet smirked, "before all this I would have said it interesting that you would know that it 'felt' like a slicers writing. Now though, I even have an understanding of how you could set up my files so I would always know when Jazz had been snooping, or attempting to snoop."

But Perceptor hadn't heard anything beyond the bit about Sideswipe. Startled again, Perceptor couldn't keep the surprise off his face. "Sideswipe?" The frontline warrior twins were a factor he had not anticipated in the equation of who knew his secret.

Ratchet, unaware of Perceptor's thoughts nodded his head and answered the one name question. "Red Alert helped him, but it was essentially Sideswipe." Then Ratchet, sensing that maybe that was not Perceptor's reason for surprise added. "And despite all the trouble the hellion causes, he and his twin know when to keep their vocalizers silent. Now, did you know that that lovely piece of programming is what is preventing you from joining your teammates in the matrix?"

Perceptor looked thru Ratchet in an absent minded way as he answered. "I have suspected it to be an element of the raison d'être, for a protracted per…"

"Don't start that with me." Ratchet interrupted as he raised a hand and cuffed Perceptor on the shoulder as the accompaniment to a warning glare.

Perceptor startled to himself, focused, nodded and continued. "I would certainly be a fool and a discredit to my gestalt mate's knowledge not to have looked to it as part of the cause."

"So you suspect it only as part of your reason for survival? How long exactly have you suspected?"

"I've had many many vorns to puzzle on it."

"Hmm. So… do you really know or only suspect there's more to it?"

Perceptor watched Ratchet as he thought about what to reveal. "I have no firm confirmation, but if I am correct? I am the only one of my teammates who this outcome would have been possible in."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"No."

Frustration flashed across Ratchet's face before quickly vanishing. "Fine. The program appears to be integrated into your systems to the point that it is a part of you. Not just an auxiliary program, but literally a part of you."

"Yes it was supposed to function that way. It was meant to be completely undetectable by anything but our own personal diagnostics." Perceptor interrupted.

"Fine. Do you mind?"

"Sorry."

"Okay. So for all these years it's been functioning in what would best be described as a passive role."

"Yes I already know that."

Ratchet gave Perceptor a pointed look.

"Sorry." Perceptor offered again.

Ratchet continued. "From what we can tell, and actually this is only speculation on Jazz's part based on what he experienced with you and the gestalt bond during the uplink. After you completed your mysterious final task, your system was in tremendous shock and under extreme stress from the trauma of losing of your team and from the program itself. You went into emergency stasis lock before the program released you to join the matrix. When you went into stasis the program went into stasis as well. Now emergency stasis and long term dormant stasis as we all were in for four million years is different from the original supportive stasis you were in, which for lack of a better description we've termed life supportive stasis. Now, in either of the first two unsupported forms, programs would not be able to draw enough energy to alter themselves. We don't know enough about the machine you were hooked up to, but you were in this in between state, with power support, limited though it may have been, for so long that the program, unable to find enough power to follow its programming to the end, altered itself so as to survive until such a time as it could complete itself. So it's been a ticking time bomb so to speak, just waiting for the timer to go and wake it up. Following this?" And Ratchet arched an optic ridge.

"I was unaware of the programs _time bomb status_, but the rest is all stuff I have suspected."

"Wonderful." Ratchet replied sarcastically before continuing. "Well when Jazz unlocked your final memories as a gestalt and you relived the death of your teammates and your _mysterious_ task, you were so far from reality within the memory, that your systems actually reacted to your situation within the memory and the program attempted to begin where it had left off. Then you went into stasis lock; dragging Jazz and Prowl with you by the way and again the stasis denied the program, but you on lined with the warrior's survival reboot. This allowed once again allowed the program the chance to attempt the completion its job which was to release all your pieces and send you to the matrix. Thankfully Jazz was online for all this, because he gave us a very quick abbreviated confession and was able to tell us what to look for. That little program of yours was eating everything myself and Wheeljack could toss at it. Red Alert _and_ Prowl _and_ Blaster gave it a try as our best programmers in base with no luck either. Mirage, before you ask was out in the field at the time. It was Prowl who summoned Sideswipe. A last ditch idea. And apparently the red hellion is a good enough bad boy. Essentially he convinced your program that he was the creator and adding to it. _Essentially_ his program is telling your program that the new order of business is to maintain at the same level it has for the last nine million years."

Perceptor's gaze dimmed as Ratchet watched and he knew Perceptor was giving the new program another look. When he looked back to Ratchet he spoke. "Sideswipe's style is quite similar to Slider's, though not as _elegant_. It does however appear to be working. I suspect in another twenty four hours Reckoning will once again be undetectable to any scans or diagnostics but my own personal ones. And it is absorbing Sideswipes with it."

"Hmm. Well I suppose I should say that is good news. Now you may come on out to the main bay, but I'm keeping you here for another twenty four hours. If everything is still looking good at that time I'll release you, but no work. In fact you are off duty, no work, pending inquiry."

"When is that scheduled?"

"Ironhide is due back two days from now, so assuming Prime allows him the usual minimum of a shift to catch up on everything and recharge? Three mornings from now would be the soonest." And with that Ratchet turned to head out leaving Perceptor to follow.

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Surprisingly, at least to himself, Perceptor found himself upon his release from Medical, not a guest of the Ark's brig as he had expected, but a free bot on complete work restriction. Not that he could have worked anyway. There was far too much "noise" in his spark, processor and systems for him to think on work. The last twenty four hours in the med bay had ended at 1300 earth hours and Perceptor had spent the afternoon and early evening in the rec room being greeted and checked up on by nearly the entire unit, including the Dinobots, as they came and went from duty shifts and personal time. The exception being only those bots on away missions, the Security Director and Prime himself.

Rarely, since joining the Autobots had Perceptor been seriously injured in a manner that confined him to Medical for such and extended period. And up until this incident he could not recall it having ever happened since joining Prime's Elite and more immediately since his being brought on line on Earth. He knew he tended to keep to himself and his few cautiously chosen friends when it came to his personal time; and as strictly to himself when on duty as was possible. And for a Senior Officer, even one who was eighth in line for command, unless attending a meeting or mission briefing of some sort he had a pretty good absence rate. So it was again to his surprise that so many bots he rarely interacted with would have noticed his absence and cared enough to inquire about his condition upon his reemergence to the world. Or it might have been the result of Sideswipe. Either way it was something to think on.

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Though he wasn't allowed to work, he was not being denied access to his lab and by relation his office. It was just after 20:00 hours and the beginning of the full night shift when he had retreated to his office. He was looking over the pictures on his wall when the note he had scribbled and stuck above Sunstreaker's paintings caught his attention. He didn't remember at the moment what he had been thinking when he had written the note, but it called out to him this night. Shifting his gaze he reached out and ran a finger along the side of the picture still showing his teammates. He had never switched it back from when he had revealed it for Jazz days ago. He lifted it off the wall and had begun to lose himself in memories when he heard the knock at the door startling him back to reality. The door wasn't closed so when he turned he found himself looking at a cautious Red Alert.

"Red Alert. What can I do for you?"

"May I come in?"

"What? Oh yes of course." And Perceptor waved vaguely to the room.

"I was wondering if you would be interested in talking?" Red Alert asked mildly and held up what was obviously an audio recording device. "I thought it might be easier for you to talk with a… friend? Perhaps? About everything. Rather than being forced when you stand before inquiry. I know I'm not as close as Ratchet and Wheeljack, but sometimes that's the type of friend you need to talk with. Plus with me you gain the additional bonus that coming from me the recording will be admissible as a replacement to live testimony."

Perceptor had gone on alert as soon as the Security Director had finished the first sentence of his request, suggestion, offer. Now though, he took in the calm tone and slow motions Red had been using since Perceptor had noticed him. Everything pointed to someone who knew he was spooky, and was offering every reason not to be. In a way, for a moment, it made Perceptor even more wary.

Red Alert just watched as Perceptor thought on his offer.

Thoughts flew Perceptor's processor. Would it truly be easier to reveal everything to this mech, here in private, so to speak? He knew even without Red Alert saying so that the Officers Council would be hearing this conversation, so perhaps he'd not have to live thru the explanation again. Then again, what had hiding all this accomplished anyway? Nothing. Nothing except landing him in trouble for having put lives of his fellow Officers, if not his fellow Autobots at risk. Autobots all, who really had shown him nothing but friendship since meeting them and joining the unit. Still, he remembered. Cavalier had trusted, and it had come back to bite him and the team in the aft. Though, much of Cavalier's trust had stemmed from conditioning he'd undergone before the team. And the whole story would have to come out anyway as part of the explanation as to why the interface had been offered or Perceptor could practically guarantee he'd be in the brig for a very long time. A mech could not expect to just get away with a so called slap on the wrist when he had endangered the lives of fellow Command Staff Officers under the circumstances involved. Hmm. A memory came to the forefront. Cavalier talking to Slider after they had fled the CCC. _"You were right Slider; the only ones we can truly trust are our teammates." _Perceptor thought on that line as well as the other one that was bugging him this evening. _Everything changes_. The Autobots were his teammates now. This tight knit unit, more like a family actually; these were his teammates. No, not like his gestalt. Never that, but still… Maybe it was time to trust again.

Perceptor looked back up at Red Alert from where his gaze had fallen to the couch. "Where do you want me to start?" he asked slowly.

The two Senior Officers talked into the night, only breaking off when the chime in the Lab alerted the two it was four in the morning and the beginning of the full morning shift. Jazz had seen, felt and learned in a mere nineteen or so minutes Perceptor's entire life as a team member of a gestalt. Red Alert learned only a fraction of that information, and it took a span of nearly 8 hours. Still, Red Alert knew how to question a mech and steer a conversation when needed, so when the Security Director left it was with almost all of the important points.

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Red Alert was headed for a meeting with Optimus Prime. He was on a mission of sorts. His conclusion on how Prime was handling the situation and all that entailed with Perceptor was not a pleasing one. In the sense that he suspected Jazz had been right on target several days ago when he had suggested Prime was taking this personally and Red Alert could not understand why that would be. Prime had been out right betrayed by mechs in the past that had indeed been Decepticons, and while neither of the two he could personally name had been in the Senior Command element of Primes immediate command at that time, they had still been in his direct unit. The fact that Red Alert himself had suspected Perceptor on some level plenty of times was just a fact of life. Pit! At any given point in time he could name several mechs of this crew who he suspected of being Decepticons. And rank was not a factor in his paranoia. Nope, he had suspected everyone. Including Optimus Prime himself. Though now, even he could see the flaw in that particular one. But it could certainly happen again. After all, there were other Autobot Commanders and… Whoa. Not the time or place to start that line of thought. And he quickly quashed the plot his processor had just thought up that would allow Prime to be a Decepticon.

It would certainly present a problem with the Inquiry if Prime was holding a personal grudge. Of the eight senior officers, five were needed for a full council. Three for an abbreviated one. Red Alert sighed. Jazz could not sit this one since he was directly involved. Prowl had already confessed that though he might still sit, depending on how it went he would probably have to abstain from the voting as he had already had a view of everything when Jazz had shared with him and had already formed an opinion. That Prowl had used the phrase _'depending on how it went he would probably have to abstain,'_ indicated to Red Alert that the SIC was well aware of the direction this was headed in regards to Prime. Perceptor himself was the one standing before council so could not vote. Red Alert had realized he was no longer neutral and would be in the same position as Prowl. There. He had just eliminated half the Command Staff.

If Prime was taking this personally, Red Alert really knew Prime should not consider himself neutral. Great wizened Bearer of the Matrix of Leadership and all meaning absolutely zilch in such a situation when personal feelings were so close to the surface and easy to read. Now they only had an abbreviated council. Problem there was Ratchet and Wheeljack were extremely good friends with Perceptor. And despite any hurt feelings the two might be experiencing from their friend, Red Alert didn't exactly see them as impartial one way or the other. That pretty much left Ironhide, who had been out leading a long patrol the entire time, and was pretty much clueless on the happenings, making him a perfect neutral at the moment. He was due back sometime today, but Red Alert would much rather Prime straighten himself out before then.

All this fretting because a mech had not revealed his entire background. Pit! This should really bother him, but he was more than just a Lucky Paranoid Glitch as some members of the crew occasionally named him. No he was very capable and very intelligent and he wouldn't be in his position if he wasn't. Therefore he knew and understood the situation the reality of the war had left. If all the bots in the Autobot army who had failed to detail their entire background were called to stand before an inquiry over it, Red Alert was sure half the Autobot Army would be tied up in legal proceedings. That would make the Decepticons happy no doubt, and see a very quick and undesirable end to the war. _Ridiculous!_ His processor screamed at him. Besides Perceptor wasn't the only high ranking officer with an interesting non-disclosed background. Prowl's name even hinted at it. In fact, Prowl and Perceptor could probably compare notes and share trade secrets on their prior profession.

Red Alert had reached Primes office now and knocked, then entered after the acknowledgement.

"Red Alert, what can I do for you?" Prime greeted after waving the Security Director to a chair.

I have something I need you to look over and really think about. It's regarding Perceptor and his background and the inquiry. Initially I assumed the inquiry was to be about Perceptor's part in the uplink he and Jazz did and the mortal risk that resulted to all Officers involved. As well as the possibility that he had withheld vital information concerning Gestalt Technology. But the more I have watched you and the more discussions we the senior officers have had over it, the more I fear that the inquiry could go in another direction."

Red Alert paused here and gave Prime a steady look over before continuing. "You know as the Matrix Bearer in general and specifically as the Commanding Officer of this unit; you have influence over those officers and mechs who have pledged themselves to the Autobot cause and specifically sworn oath to you as the Commander of this unit. You are The Prime. Most of the ranks may not know or realize it, but those of us who have held our own commands as well as our Decepticon counterparts have long been aware of the power an honestly given oath gives over the bots under our command. That is why Commanders on both sides have new bots to their units swear oath to them. It's not out of some misguided ancient tradition or ceremony." Red Alert raised a hand in a halting jester as Prime looked about to interrupt. "And before you say anything, I agree a mechs spark does not give a great amount of power with a sworn oath, and it is easily switched by a new oath, but it is enough to influence… for good or bad. Do you realize how close you are to influencing? And not just those who would sit as council for the inquiry. Unintentional yes, but you are still perilously close to tearing this unit apart. Optimus, you need to consider your personal reasons behind why you are turning the inquiry in the direction you are. I've already reconciled with myself what Perceptor did. Now _you_ need to take a look at your reasons; and preferably before Ironhide gets back." With that, Red Alert stood up and handed over a datapad to Prime. "It's self explanatory." Then he left the office.

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Prime removed his cable from the datapad and leaned back in his chair with his gaze on the far wall. It had taken mere moments to learn everything on Red Alerts datapad once he had uploaded it. And the true nature of the content surprised him. Not only did it have an audio copy of Red Alerts conversation with Perceptor, but Red Alert had offered a second version of the audio file; this one directly from Red Alerts memory so Prime could see what Red Alert had seen and hear what Red Alert had heard as well as how the Security Director had deciphered the answers and directed the conversation as it progressed. It was a nearly unprecedented direct look into the very private Security Directors processor and way of thinking. That in itself told Optimus just how concerned his Security Director was over Prime's position on this. And he was well aware that Red Alert probably had a right to be concerned. Taking something personally was one thing. Even he was allowed to do that. But taking something personally for the wrong reason or reasons, and then influencing others based on his personal feelings was debauched and entirely akin to Megatron and his misuse of the power of the oaths.

So with those thoughts he directed his attention to the reason why he was taking this betrayal so personally. And right there he paused. The word betrayal was a very strong word. Why had he used it? At this point nothing Perceptor had done warranted the use of the word. So again why was he using it? He continued to exam everything with the situation and finally after several minutes hit on the reason. His unit had developed closeness since their time on this organic world. In truth, it had begun on Cybertron shortly before the Ark's launch when he had formed the unit. Wanting the best, he had chosen Autobots who were specialists. In doing so he had formed a unit heavy with officers since specialists who were the best in their specialties tended to be officers. Because of the unbalance, the line between the ranks while still present had begun to fade. And while that had not affected the fighting abilities, or command structure, it had done something on the personal level.

The time spent on this organic planet, in close contact with the dominant species had furthered that change. This was no longer an Autobot battle unit, it had become a family. No longer did the frontline warriors risk their lives for bots they barely knew; or the Officers give an order in battle to a bot they knew only by name. The entire unit was one huge family and viewed each other as a member of that family. Oh, not to say they didn't have problems, but Sparkplug had said even human families had problems. He'd also mentioned that the larger the family, the more likelihood of there being at minimum, one black sheep. Well Optimus knew he had several 'black sheep,' but all in all, even for the 'black sheep' it all worked out. It could be seen every time a mech was released from medical after and extended stay. It could be seen in how the members spent there down time with each other. It could be seen in the snowball fights in the winter and the basketball games in the summer. It was present at each of the human holiday celebrations Jazz insisted the Ark participate in. They were no longer a loose knit fighting unit of mixed backgrounds with only a joint cause and a couple of officers to give them cohesion and orders. No, they had indeed become a family in every sense that humans viewed it.

And therein was the reason behind his anger at Perceptor. Perceptor hadn't committed and act of war by betraying his unit, his commander or the Autobot cause. He had deceived his family. And that had hurt Optimus. He had been hurt. And in his hurt he had failed that same family by not considering Perceptor's reasoning. Instead he had allowed his hurt to envelope his spark and blind him to the family member who needed his understanding the most. And worse he had been prepared to take it out on Perceptor in the Inquiry. Red Alert had considered all this and gone against his extremely private paranoid nature to allow Prime to see what needed to be seen. He would have to thank Red Alert.

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Thank you to everyone who has offered a review (or several), put this on story alert for updates and or chosen this as a fav. It is all truly appreciated.


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